¿ Aerogen Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., said the underwriters of its recent initial public offering exercised their overallotment option, purchasing 540,000 shares at $12 per share, bringing the total shares sold in the offering to more than 4.1 million shares. The offering was managed by Chase H&Q, of San Francisco; CIBC World Markets Corp., of New York; and SG Cowen Securities Corp., also of New York. The overallotment purchase brings Aerogen's total from the offering to about $49.6 million. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 13, 2000.)

¿ Alkermes Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., presented results from the first clinical trial of Medisorb Naltrexone, its proprietary injectable sustained-release formulation of naltrexone, at the 39th Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Puerto Rico. The study found the formulation maintained therapeutic levels for a full month, while requiring less than one-fifth the total monthly dose.

¿ BioPulse International Inc., of San Ysidro, Calif., entered an agreement with Brigham Young University for exclusive rights to a cancer diagnostic. The agreement calls for BioPulse to develop an ELISA test for the technology, which measures blood levels of the cancer activity marker thymidine kinase 1.

¿ Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp., of San Diego, said further analysis of data from an international Phase III general surgery study with Oxygent, its intravenous oxygen carrier, were presented at the 54th Postgraduate Assembly in Anesthesiology in New York by a principle investigator. The presentation showed that patients in a group that lost a certain amount of blood and received Oxygent either completely avoided the need for blood more frequently than the control group, or required fewer units of blood, with both avoidance and reduction of blood transfusions statistically significant.

¿ Amarin Corp. plc, of London, said it has been notified by Laxdale Ltd. that the FDA cleared the investigational new drug application for LAX-101 for the treatment of Huntington's disease. The pivotal, double-blind, placebo-controlled study will enroll more than 100 patients at four centers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and is expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete.

¿ Cell Genesys Inc., of Foster City, Calif., said its prostate cancer vaccine, GVAX, demonstrated antitumor activity in an initial Phase II trial in patients with advanced metastatic prostate cancer who have failed hormone therapy. The efficacy endpoint used in the study was disease progression measured by bone scan. Before any potential Phase III trials, it plans to initiate further trials of GVAX prostate cancer vaccine in 2001 with a higher potency. GVAX cancer vaccines are comprised of tumor cells that have been genetically modified to secrete granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor.

¿ Cell Pathways Inc., of Horsham, Pa., said at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer meeting that new research shows exisulind and CP461 inhibit cell growth and trigger apoptosis in human breast cancer cells lines, including cells lacking HER-2/neu or estrogen receptors. Also, exisulind and CP461 each demonstrate synergistic anticancer activity in combination with Herceptin and Taxotere.

¿ Compugen Ltd., of Princeton, N.J., opened a business development, sales and marketing office in Sunnyvale, Calif. The facility will focus on the commercialization of Compugen's genomic and proteomic products, including its DNA chip design system, on the West Coast.

¿ Dianon Systems Inc., of Stratford Conn., said it is introducing a new service for quantitative analysis of HER2/neu protein expression, providing ChromaVision Medical Systems Inc.'s Automated Cellular Imaging System as part of its new breast pathology services. The test is used to help identify patients who express too much of the HER2/neu protein, patients who may benefit from anti-HER2/neu monoclonal antibody therapy.

¿ Durect Corp., of Cupertino, Calif., said it enrolled patients for a Phase II clinical trial for its lead product, Duros sufentanil, for the treatment of chronic pain. Duros sufentanil uses the Duros osmotic delivery system to deliver sufentanil, an opioid used in hospitals as an anesthetic, on a continuous basis for three months.

¿ Dusa Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Wilmington, Mass., said investigators at the University of Sheffield, UK, published results of the first randomized clinical study using Levulan Photodynamic Therapy to treat dysplastic Barrett's esophagus, in 36 subjects. A response was seen in 16 of 18 patients in the Levulan group, with a median decrease in Barrett's esophagus averaging 30 percent. The placebo group had no decrease.

¿ Epimmune Inc., of San Diego, reported results at the 9th International Conference on Gene Therapy of Cancer showing its therapeutic vaccine designed to treat breast, colon and lung cancers stimulates immune responses in animal models and in human cells in laboratory tests.

¿ Exelixis Inc., of South San Francisco, said it completed its acquisition of Agritope Inc., of Portland, Ore., an agricultural biotechnology company developing improved plant products and providing technology for the agricultural industry. Agritope will be renamed Exelixis Plant Sciences Inc. and will function as a wholly owned subsidiary of Exelixis. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 11, 2000.)

¿ Focal Inc., of Lexington, Mass., exercised its option to have Genzyme Surgical Products Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., purchase approximately 2.4 million shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $2.06 per share, raising $5 million. The purchase is expected to close in January and Genzyme will own about 25 percent of Focal's outstanding voting stock. Under the terms of the agreement, announced in October 1999, Genzyme committed to invest up to $20 million in four equity installments. In connection with this agreement, they entered into a North American marketing and distribution agreement for FocalSeal-L in certain surgical sealant applications.

¿ Gilead Sciences Inc., of Foster City, Calif., received approval from the People's Republic of China State Drug Administration for its clinical trial application for adefovir dipivoxil, its investigational compound for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Gilead is evaluating the compound in Phase III studies in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia and plans to initiate Phase I studies in China in 2001.

¿ ImmuCell Corp., of Portland, Maine, acquired MASTiK, Mastitis Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing Kit, from Lotek Inc., of Pomfret Center, Conn. ImmuCell paid $35,000 on closing for the rights and a related patent and must pay another $40,000 by July 2 to maintain ownership. The product helps veterinarians and producers select the antibiotic most likely to be effective in the treatment of individual cases of mastitis.

¿ Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Carlsbad, Calif., said its board approved the adoption of a stockholder rights plan whereby all stockholders of record as of Jan. 10 will receive rights to purchase shares of a new series of preferred stock.

¿ Infectech Inc., of Sharon, Pa., said the Pinnacle Group, of Great Neck, N.Y., will act as its corporate investor relations and financial consultant. The Pinnacle Group will assist Infectech's management in obtaining secondary financing for its sales, marketing and patent development efforts and for increasing the value of Infectech equity. Infectech is focused on developing a system for identifying bacteria infecting hospital patients utilizing its baiting technology in combination with genomic amplification.

¿ Inkine Pharmaceutical Co. Inc., of Blue Bell, Pa., said it has positive results from its multicenter, open-label Phase II trial of Colirest for the treatment of mild or moderate active ulcerative colitis. Based on the results, Inkine plans to move Colirest into later-stage pivotal trials.

¿ IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., began patient enrollment for a Phase IIa trial of its antibiotic compound, Protegrin IB-367 rinse, for the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia. The trial is designed to test its safety and antimicrobial activity on patients requiring a ventilator for breathing assistance and at risk for developing pneumonia.

¿ Medical Alliance Inc., of Irving, Texas, shareholders approved the purchase of the medical business assets of Medical Alliance by a subsidiary of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif., for $14.4 million. Shareholders also approved a name change to MAII Holdings Inc., and the company continues talks to explore opportunities such as selling the company's cash assets and corporate shell.

¿ MorphoSys AG, of Munich, Germany, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, reached the first milestone in their collaboration on HuCAL-derived medications for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The achievement triggers an undisclosed payment from Roche to MorphoSys. They are using MorphoSys' HuCAL-Fab library to generate and optimize antibodies to the Roche biological target.

¿ NeoGenesis Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., signed a collaborative research agreement with Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J. NeoGenesis will use its proprietary chemical genomics technology platform to identify and optimize chemical compounds for new drug discovery leads against multiple targets selected from protein families in therapeutic areas. Other terms were not disclosed.

¿ NeoPharm Inc., of Bannockburn, Ill., initiated Phase I/II trials for IL13-PE38 for patients with refractory glioblastoma multiforme, a form of brain cancer. The first patient already has completed treatment. NeoPharm has exclusively licensed IL13-PE38 from the National Cancer Institute, of Bethesda, Md., and FDA for worldwide development.

¿ Nexell Therapeutics Inc., of Menlo Park, Calif., filed with regulators to sell up to $25 million of common stock. It plans to use the net proceeds from the shelf offering for research, development, product manufacturing, working capital and general corporate purposes, the company said in its filing.

¿ Rosetta Inpharmatics Inc., of Kirkland, Wash, and Agilent Technologies Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., said Glaxo Wellcome plc, of London, licensed the Rosetta Resolver Expression Data Analysis System. Terms were not disclosed. Also, Rosetta said the Nature Publishing Group, publisher of Nature, joined the GEML Community. The GEML Community employs the Gene Expression Markup Language format for exchange of gene expression and proteomics data, along with associated annotation.

¿ Schwarz Biosciences, of Research Triangle Park, N.C., opened its 18,000-square-foot U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Schwarz is a subsidiary of Schwarz Pharma AG, of Monheim, Germany.

¿ Select Therapeutics Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., extended its research collaboration with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on the thinning of lung secretions. Select said it believes the project has identified a route to therapeutics for cystic fibrosis and other lung disorders such as asthma and chronic infections in which physical access to the airway is obstructed by secretions of the lung.

¿ Senomyx Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., said it will work with Kraft Foods Inc., of Northfield, Ill., to discover new ingredients that improve and enhance taste using proprietary Senomyx technology. Financial terms were not disclosed. Senomyx works in three areas: olfaction, flavor and taste. The agreement with Kraft focuses on improving and enhancing taste with some of its brands, still to be determined. The collaboration specifies Senomyx will use its genomics, biology, chemistry, high-throughput screening and informatics to develop compounds to enhance taste and Kraft will utilize the resulting technology to develop and market products. The research portion of the agreement will take place over the next several years.

¿ Union Biometrica Inc., of Somerville, Mass., and Aventis SA, of Strasbourg, France, entered a collaboration under which Aventis will provide funding to further Union Biometrica's research and development of its instrumentation and tools for rapid screening of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the first complex, multicellular organism for which the DNA sequence of the entire genome was completed. Aventis scientists will work with the technology at Union Biometrica's facility and Union Biometrica will place one of its Copas Technology Platform systems in the Aventis Center for Functional Genomics in Martinsried, Germany.

¿ Zycos Inc., of Lexington, Mass., initiated a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II trial in Europe and the United States for ZYC101a, its candidate to treat cervical dysplasia associated with the human papilloma virus. ZYC101a is a novel therapeutic candidate that contains a genetic code naturally processed by the immune system and used to signal T cells to attack cervical cells infected by HPV.