¿ Admetric BioChem Inc., of Medford, Mass., received a cash infusion of $2.25 million from Oxford Bioscience Partners, of Costa Mesa, Calif., 2200 Ventures LLC and S. R. One Ltd., the venture capital arm of SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, now GlaxoSmithKline, of Brentford, UK. Admetric focuses on ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicology) screening.

¿ Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp., of San Diego, said it is realigning its personnel to focus on identifying the cause of enrollment suspension in its Phase III study of Oxygent, its intravenous oxygen carrier. The realignment will result in a 20 percent reduction in personnel, or about 50 employees, and savings of about $14 million annually. The company expected to report more than $25 million in cash on hand as of Dec. 31. It said its immediate priorities are the identification of the issues that led to the study suspension and the resumption of Oxygent development. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 10, 2000.)

¿ Cellegy Pharmaceuticals Inc., of South San Francisco, said it intends to file a new drug application with the FDA requesting marketing approval for its anal fissure pain therapeutic, Anogesic (nitroglycerin ointment), and supplement the NDA by the end of the year after completion of its confirmatory Phase III trial of the drug candidate.

¿ Chromos Molecular Systems Inc., of Burnaby, British Columbia, initiated research into the development of plant artificial chromosomes through its newly formed subsidiary, Agrisoma Biosciences Inc. Agrisoma will take research and development funding from Chromos, and will access Chromos' proprietary technology. The subsidiary is considering seeking funding from outside sources for research and development later this year.

¿ Collateral Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, entered an exclusive option agreement with the University of California involving genes related to cell cycle regulation. Collateral will develop and commercialize the research and technology pursuant to the agreement, which gives it an option for exclusive worldwide rights to genes and technologies discovered by the university.

¿ Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., achieved the second milestone in its three-year collaboration with Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, Switzerland. Cubist will receive an undisclosed milestone payment for the delivery of a validated target and a high-throughput screening assay for anti-infective drug discovery.

¿ DepoMed Inc., of Menlo Park, Calif., said a single-dose, 15-patient Phase I trial comparing its Gastric Retention dosage form of ciprofloxacin with immediate-release ciprofloxacin found the extended-release version had comparable bioavialability and a significantly extended blood plasma concentration profile. The company expects to file an investigational new drug application for the extended-release product later this year.

¿ Doubletwist Inc., of Oakland, Calif., and Genomatix Software GmbH, of Munich, Germany, entered a partnership aimed at aiding scientific gene characterization. The collaboration will merge Doubletwist's Annotated Human Genome Database with Genomatix's Promoter Resource database for the molecular switches that regulate gene expression analysis. Doubletwist will be the sole distributor of resultant data.

¿ Entigen Corp., of Sunnyvale, Calif., and the South African National Bioinformatics Institute, of Belville, South Africa, plan to combine their resources to create and deliver a collection of dynamic data sets describing gene expression profiles called Clusterall. The data sets will be available on Entigen's online BioNavigator Bioinformatics Workspace.

¿ Galen Holdings plc, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland, said it received an approvable letter from the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines for its first intravaginal ring-based product for hormone replacement therapy. The company anticipates clearance for marketing within months.

¿ Inflazyme Pharmaceuticals Ltd., of Richmond, British Columbia, expanded its collaboration with Aventis Pharma AG, of Frankfurt, Germany, for research and development of anti-inflammatories from Inflazyme's IPL576 series of small molecules. The agreement, begun in 1999, will now include two additional compounds, IPL550,260 and IPL512,602. Inflazyme already received $16 million from the initial deal, signed with Hoechst Marion Roussel, and may receive up to an additional $75 million. Terms of the expansion were not disclosed. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 10, 1999.)

¿ LifeSpan BioSciences Inc., of Seattle, entered an agreement providing Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., access to LifeSpan's database of G protein-coupled receptor expression and localization information. Merck will use the data to identify and validate new gene targets for drug discovery. Further financial details were not disclosed.

¿ Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp., signed a letter of intent with Biophage Inc., of Montreal, to collaborate on novel antimicrobial treatments and applications development. Further details on the collaboration were not disclosed.

¿ OraPharma Inc., of Warminster, Pa., completed recruitment of its U.S. sales force for Arestin, its adjunctive treatment of adult periodontitis. The sales and marketing team consists of 63 members, including five regional sales managers. OraPharma submitted a new drug application to the FDA for Arestin in February 2000.

¿ Oxigene Inc., of Watertown, Mass., signed a letter of intent for the sale of its Nicoplex and Thiol test products to CampaMed Inc. The letter provides for an exclusive period for the completion of a definitive agreement, which will be subject to the satisfaction of the parties and customary closing conditions.

¿ Pheromone Sciences Corp., of Toronto, said it will privately offer up to 2.2 million warrants at the issue price of C$1 per special warrant exercisable into one share of stock. Pheromone said it will use the proceeds from the warrant placement to support its research and development activities. The company focuses on commercializing technologies related to human reproduction and sexuality.

¿ The Dysautonomia Foundation, of New York, a group of parents of children afflicted with familial dysautonomia, a neurological disorder nearly exclusively prevalent among Askenazi Jews, said it will provide up to $1 million in grants annually to support research to develop a cure for the disease. It also will aid in screening programs at New York University Medical Center, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, and Hadassah University Hospital in Israel.

¿ Phytera Inc., of Worcester, Mass., achieved a research milestone in its 1998 antifungal drug discovery collaboration with Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis. The milestone triggered a payment from Lilly, but neither the milestone nor the amount of the payment was disclosed.

¿ Sepracor Inc., of Marlborough, Mass., called for redemption on Feb. 21 of all its outstanding 6.25 percent convertible subordinated debentures due Feb. 18, 2005. The outstanding debentures have an aggregate principle amount of $92.86 million, and the redemption price is $1,035.71 per $1,000 principal amount. Holders have the alternative option until 5 p.m. Feb. 20 of converting their debentures into Sepracor shares at a conversion price of $23.6845 per share, with each $1,000 principal amount of debentures convertible into 42.22 shares.

¿ Silicon Genetics Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., completed the integration of its GeneSpring software into the Gene Logic Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., software interface for Gene Logic's GeneExpress database. The integrated package will allow for exportation and importation of gene expression data and annotation as well as GeneSpring analyses.

¿ Vivus Inc., of Mountain View, initiated enrollment in its Phase II study of Alista, its female sexual dysfunction product. The multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled study is designed to evaluate the sexual response in women with a primary diagnosis of female sexual arousal disorder.