¿ Alkermes Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said holders of about 1.77 million shares of its $3.25 convertible exchangeable preferred stock converted those shares into common stock. Alkermes redeemed about 500 shares of remaining preferred stock at a redemption price of $52.275 per share on Thursday. Holders of preferred stock will receive 3.3756 shares of common stock for every share of preferred stock, for a total of 6 million shares converted. As of Dec. 31, Alkermes had about 55 million shares outstanding. After the redemption the company will no longer have any preferred shares outstanding.

¿ AMBI Inc., of Purchase, N.Y., said shareholders approved its name change to Nutrition 21 Inc. Its trading symbol on Nasdaq is now NXXI, effective today.

¿ Applied Biosystems Group, of Foster City, Calif., signed a nonexclusive license agreement for Bothell, Wash.-based Prolinx Inc.'s proprietary Versalinx Chemical Affinity Tools. APBiosystems will use the Versalinx technology in conjunction with its own instruments to automate purification of ribonucleic acid. Financial terms were undisclosed.

¿ Atrix Laboratories Inc., of Fort Collins, Colo., said its joint development venture with Elan Corp. plc, of Dublin, Ireland, Tansmucosal Technologies Inc., initiated development of an anti-emetic product using Atrix's bioerodible mucoadhesive system for prevention of nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy. The companies plan to file an investigational new drug application with the FDA in the near future.

¿ Bioniche Life Sciences Inc., of Belleville, Ontario, entered a strategic alliance with UroCor Inc., of Oklahoma City. The alliance will seek development and approval for Cystistat, and upon approval UroCor will have exclusive rights to market and distribute Cystistat. The agreement also provides UroCor with an option to market Bioniche's mycobacterial cell wall-DNA complex for bladder and prostate cancer in the U.S. The companies also agreed to grant Bioniche exclusive distribution rights for UroCor's existing line of diagnostic urology products and services in Canada, and to exchange rights of first refusal for future developments. UroCor paid Bioniche an up-front payment of $750,000, and UroCor will pay additional payments totaling $2.28 million for milestone achievements.

¿ Cellomics Inc., of Pittsburgh, signed a long-term lease on a building in the Pittsburgh Technology Center, the Bridgeside Point Building. The company said the move will allow it to consolidate operations with its manufacturing center. The 153,000-square-foot building is under construction, and is expected to be completed by December.

¿ Claragen Inc., of College Park, Md., began a multicenter clinical study of recombinant human protein CC10 to determine its safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics in the prevention of chronic lung disease in premature infants. Claragen and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health, of Bethesda, Md., are engaged in a cooperative research and development program focused on CC10.

¿ Cytomation Inc., of San Diego, and Cytometry Research LLC, also of San Diego, will launch the San Diego Biotechnology Center. The center will make Cytomation's MoFlo Modular Flow Cytometer and Summit software available to the region's biotech companies.

¿ Epimmune Inc., of San Diego, said it has developed a rational and systematic approach for identifying heteroclitic analogues, or modified tumor antigens capable of producing an immune response. The company uses a defined set of rules to alter specific amino-acid sequences contained within epitopes of natural tumor antigens, the portions of tumor antigens that alert the immune system and stimulate an attack on tumor cells. The work could enhance the effectiveness of cancer vaccines.

¿ Genmab A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, said its open-label Phase I/II 10-patient study of HuMax-CD4, its fully human antibody for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, indicated the treatment was well tolerated, produced no serious adverse effects and no depletion of CD4-positive T cells. The company said the therapy also showed signs of efficacy.

¿ Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., released its fourth-quarter and year 2000 financial results. For the year, net income increased 23 percent before special items and prior to purchase accounting to $208.8 million, or $2.27 per share, compared with net income before special items of $170.4 million, or $1.64 per share, for 1999. After special items and prior to purchase accounting, Genzyme General's net income was $242 million, or $2.62 per share. Including acquisition-related costs, it reported a loss of 68 cents per share for the fourth quarter, and reported earnings of $1.35 per share for the year. Revenues for the fourth quarter grew 13 percent to $203 million, compared with revenues of $180.1 million for the same quarter in 1999, including sales of its product Renagel. For the year, revenues grew 16 percent to $760.5 million. Cerezyme sales for the year totaled $536.9 million, 12 percent higher than in 1999. Genzyme expects 2001 earnings to come in between $2.25 and $2.35 per share before amortization.

¿ ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif., released a revised structure for the offering of shares of ICN International. Subject to market conditions, it is proposed that up to 40 percent of ICN International will be sold in an offering in the second quarter of 2001. It is intended that the shares will be listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange and the global depositary receipts will be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

¿ Inhibitex Inc., of Alpharetta, Ga., began patient enrollment for a Phase II trial for Staphylococcus aureus immune globulin intravenous (SA-IGIV). The multisite trial is designed to demonstrate that treatment with SA-IGIV can reduce the duration of bloodstream infections in patients with infectious endocarditis.

¿ Introgen Therapeutics Inc., of Austin, Texas, entered an agreement for process and formulation development with Selective Genetics Inc., of San Diego, to supply Selective with clinical-grade manufacturing services for Selective's soft tissue repair gene therapy programs. Introgen operates a manufacturing facility and a separate pilot production facility in Houston.

¿ Invitrogen Corp., of San Diego, said its board approved a preferred stock purchase rights plan. The company said the plan is designed to provide fair and equal treatment for stockholders in the event of an unsolicited attempt to acquire Invitrogen.

¿ Isotechnika Inc., of Toronto, expanded its operation with an office in Scottsdale, Ariz. The office is intended to facilitate coordination of Phase II trials of ISA(TX)247 in kidney transplant patients, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, and to expedite business development in the U.S.

¿ Lynx Therapeutics Inc., of Hayward, Calif., and Celera Genomics Inc., of Rockville, Md., signed two agreements. The first involves the integration of sets of Lynx's gene expression data into the Celera Discovery System. Under the second agreement, Lynx will apply its MPSS technology to perform additional gene expression analyses for Celera and to help supplement the Lynx database offering. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., of San Diego, completed a Phase I trial of its corticotrophin-releasing factor receptor antagonist for treatment of depression and anxiety. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase I trial was designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, including endocrine profiles, over six dose ranges in 48 normal healthy volunteers.

¿ Pharsight Corp., of Mountain View, Calif., entered a collaboration with iBiomatics LLC. Initially, the companies will market an integration of Pharsight's Computer-Assisted Trial Design methodology, the Pharsight Trial Simulator and iBiomatics' web-based platform for biomedical informatics. Financial details were undisclosed.

¿ Protarga Inc., of Conshohocken, Pa., began Phase II studies of Taxoprexin DHA-paclitaxel, an anticancer therapeutic. The program will evaluate the candidate in eight cancers, and is designed to evaluate the compound's safety and efficacy in up to 400 patients suffering from cancers of the breast, colon/rectum, kidney, lung, pancreas, prostate, skin and stomach.

¿ Stem Cell Sciences Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, created a wholly owned UK subsidiary, Stem Cell Sciences (UK) Ltd., with offices and laboratories within the Centre for Genome Research at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. This establishment of a UK base follows expansion in Australia.

¿ Structural Bioinformatics Inc., of San Diego, and ArQule Inc., of Woburn, Mass., entered into a subscription agreement granting ArQule access to SBI's ProMax 3-D drug target protein database. Financial terms were undisclosed.

¿ Vasogen Inc., of Toronto, named William Grant to succeed William Cochrane as its chairman. Grant has been a director of Vasogen since November 1998.

¿ WITA Proteomics AG, of Teltow, Germany, was spun out from its parent company, WITA GmbH. The subsidiary focuses on research and discovery and is involved in the mass separation and identification of disease-related proteins, with the goal of identifying proteins of interest for the diagnostic, drug development and predictive toxicology markets. WITA Proteomics has raised EUR4.4 million (US$4.1 million) in funding from advantec AG, of Berlin, and tbg, of Bonn, Germany.

¿ Xenogen Corp., of Alameda, Calif., entered a six-month evaluation license with Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Richmond, Calif., for Xenogen's in vivo imaging technology. Onyx plans to use the technology to image bioluminescent cancer cells in vivo for its virus research programs, and to image and study the biological activity of genetically altered viruses. Financial details were undisclosed.