¿ European Parliament officials decided to set up a new temporary committee of inquiry into genetics. It will look at new developments in the field of human genetics and related new technologies. It will have 36 members and last for 12 months. In particular, it plans to examine ethical, legal, economic and social issues related to these new developments in the medical field. It also will look at the public interest issue with a view to making recommendations. European Commissioner for Research Philippe Busquin said that the newly formed inquiry committee could count on full cooperation from him and his officials.

¿ GPC Biotech AG, of Martinsried, Germany, obtained DM2.5 million (US$$1.2 million) from the European EUREKA Research Initiative granted by the German Research Ministry. GPC said sit wants to identify intercellular protein-protein interactions related to development of cancer. GPC will collaborate with Belgian company Eurogentec SA. Eurogentec will do high-throughput DNA synthesis and analysis.

¿ Matrix Science Ltd., of London, said its protein identification software, Mascot, has been chosen by Geneva Proteomics Inc. as the initial search engine for an industrial-scale proteomics factory it is setting up in Switzerland. Mascot, which enables data from mass spectrometers to be matched against protein or nucleic acid databases, already has been licensed to a number of pharmaceutical companies.

¿ MediGene AG, of Martinsried, Germany, put its potential heart drug Etomoxir into Phase II clinical trials. The company expects Etomoxir to be the first drug for heart insufficiency treating the disease's causes. It is designed to shift energy delivery in mitochondria from fatty acid oxidation to more efficient glucose-metabolism. MediGene said the study at 50 European centers is open to 360 patients with heart insufficiency of classes NYHA II-III, who do not suffer from metabolic diseases or other hard disease. MediGene got the license for Etomoxir from the German pharmaceutical company

Byk Gulden

¿ NeuroSearch A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, said it entered an agreement with Spanish pharmaceutical firm Grupo Ferrer Internacional S.A., of Barcelona, to develop and commercialize the anxiolytic compound NS2710. Grupo Ferrer will have Latin American and European rights to the product, excluding the Nordic and Baltic countries, while NeuroSearch will retain rights for the rest of the world. NS2710, a GABA modulator currently in Phase II trials, was previously the subject of an agreement with Japanese firm Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd., of Tokyo, which has withdrawn from the collaboration. Meiji Seika and NeuroSearch had also entered an agreement based on NS2710 with Pharmacia & Upjohn (now Pharmacia Corp.). The latter company withdrew from this project in March last year.

¿ NicOx SA, of Sophia-Antipolis, France, embarked on Phase I clinical trials of three drug candidates. NCX 701, a nitric oxide-releasing derivative of paracetamol (acetaminophen in the U.S.) for the treatment of pain, is being tested at five escalating-dose levels to assess safety and tolerability and to obtain a pharmacokinetic profile of the drug in plasma. NCX 1015, an NO-releasing prednisolone derivative for inflammatory bowel disease, is being tested in an enema formulation to evaluate four single-escalating doses for local tolerability and to assess the drug's safety and pharmacokinetic profile. In the trial for NCX 1022, an NO-releasing hydrocortisone derivative for treating psoriasis that is formulated as a topical ointment, three doses are being compared with placebo and three reference steroids. The trial is designed to compare the pharmacological blanching effect due to vasoconstriction between NCX 1022 and the steroids. All the trials are being carried out on healthy volunteers in France.