¿ AlphaGene Inc., of Woburn, Mass., constructed an inventory of 500 million human cDNA clones. This library was produced by constructing 200 cDNA libraries from fetal, adult, diseased and normal tissues. Approximately 55 percent of the inventory comes from neural tissue, and the remainder from 20 other human tissues.

¿ Charles River Laboratories Inc., of Boston, said it will file a registration statement with the SEC for a proposed underwritten offering of 7 million shares of its common stock. The company will sell 3.5 million shares and selling shareholders will offer the other 3.5 million. Based on Wednesday's closing price of $24.85, the offering would raise $173.9 million.

¿ EluSys Therapeutics Inc., of Pine Brook, N.J., said it is renewing its agreement with the University of Virginia to further develop its Heteropolymer System for the treatment of human diseases. The system is being evaluated as a method for clearing from the bloodstream pathogens that cause infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders. EluSys and UVA also will investigate the development and feasibility of a platform technology that targets and purges cancer cells from the bloodstream.

¿ Gene Logic Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., said Genentech Inc., of South San Francisco, subscribed to the BioExpress Module of Gene Logic's GeneExpress Suite for use in its drug discovery and development programs. Financial terms of the multiyear subscription were not disclosed.

¿ GeneData AG, of Basel, Switzerland, and Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, entered a multiyear license agreement for the microarray data analysis system, GeneData Expressionist. GeneData has installed the system at all major Novartis Pharma research sites from where it can be accessed through the Intranet by Novartis scientists worldwide.

¿ GenVec Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., initiated Phase I trials with TNFerade, a product candidate intended for use in combination with radiation therapy to improve the treatment of cancer. The study is being conducted at several U.S. clinical sites. Participants will include patients who have failed standard treatment and those who currently receive radiation for local tumor control.

¿ Immuno-Designed Molecules SA, of Paris, signed a collaboration agreement with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, of Melbourne, Australia, to extend IDM's Phase III clinical trial in ovarian cancer. The study will take place over three years and will include 300 ovarian cancer patients.

¿ Incyte Genomics Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., and Genicon Sciences Corp., of San Diego, plan to jointly develop resources for the detection of infinitesimal levels of proteins present in biological samples. Incyte will receive certain rights to co-develop and commercialize Genicon's proprietary RLS Technology with Incyte array products. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ InKine Pharmaceutical Co. Inc., of Blue Bell, Pa., entered an 18-month, co-promotion agreement with Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals under which the P&G gastrointestinal sales force will promote Visicol, approved in September for bowel cleansing, to gastroenterologists and colorectal surgeons along with InKine's existing 30 sales representatives and three district managers. InKine said P&G's 60-person sales force will allow for coverage of the entire market, rather than the 50 percent InKine would cover with its sales force. P&G will receive undisclosed payments during its participation and InKine will retain all rights and marketing control of Visicol. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 22, 2000, and May 17, 2000.)

¿ International Wex Technologies Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, filed an investigational new drug submission with the Therapeutic Product Programs, Health Protection Branch, Canada. It is seeking to conduct a Phase Ib/Ic study to assess the tolerance of multiple intramuscular doses of Tetrodin.

¿ La Jolla Pharmaceuticals Co., of San Diego, said researchers presented results showing its Toleragen clinical candidate, LJP 1082, reduced disease-causing antibodies and corrected a clotting defect involved in antibody-mediated thrombosis. LJP 1082 is based on La Jolla's Tolerance Testing, designed to arrest the production of disease-causing antibodies without suppressing the functions of the immune system.

¿ Maxim Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, received two Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grants from the National Cancer Institute, of Bethesda, Md., totaling $200,000. The grants will fund testing of an anticancer compound categorized as a caspase inducer and testing of a drug candidate in oral mucositis.

¿ NeoTherapeutics Inc., of Irvine, Calif., raised $3.5 million through the placement of approximately 1.6 million shares on common stock with Amro International, of the Netherlands. The financing involved the sale of common stock at a 15 percent discount to the market price with no reset provisions, no warrants attached and no fees. The transaction closed last week. The company's burn rate was $1.7 million in January, but the rate is expected to rise. It now has about 16 million shares outstanding.

¿ Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., of San Diego, said results from its ongoing clinical program with NBI-34060 for insomnia demonstrate that the product works as a sedative-hypnotic with no major differences in the pharmacokinetics for maximum plasma levels or total drug exposure between young adults and elderly subjects. Also, there were no changes between these patient populations in the accumulation of NBI-34060 after four consecutive nightly doses. The drug was well tolerated and produced no residual effect or hangover the next day. Additional studies are ongoing to define the optimal dose for pivotal Phase III studies expected to commence later this year.

¿ Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Hayward, Calif., licensed certain antifungal drug research technology to Tularik Inc., of South San Francisco, in exchange for a cash payment and future potential milestone and royalty payments. Also, Questcor transferred certain biological and chemical reagents to be used in the discovery and development of novel antifungal agents.

¿ The Mouse Sequencing Consortium, a collection of three private companies, six institutes of the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust, said it achieved its own goal of 66 percent coverage of the genome three months into the six-month project. Also, collaborators in the MSC have made available a new repository that contains not only the letters of the DNA sequence but also raw data, including actual traces from sequencing machines.

¿ Valentis Inc., of Burlingame, Calif., completed enrollment in its randomized Phase IIb trial of its interleukin-2 gene medicine, injected directly into tumors of patients with recurrent or refractory squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, with the patients also receiving high-dose chemotherapy. The trial has an efficacy endpoint of time to progressive disease and has now enrolled 85 patients in Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic.