¿Aclara BioSciences Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., said Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, on behalf of all the underwriters for the company's March initial public offering, authorized an early release of lock-up restrictions on about 6 million shares of Aclara stock, about a quarter of the shares covered by the restrictions. The release allows pre-IPO shareholders to sell a portion of their stock.

¿Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation said they've entered an agreement for the development of a custom GeneChip expression array based on the Pseudomonas aeruginosa genome. The arrays are to be used for non-profit and commercial cystic fibrosis research on P. aeruginosa, the most common cause of respiratory infections in CF patients.

¿AltaRex Inc., of Waltham, Mass., said underwriters exercised their overalltoment option to purchase an additional 1.38 million shares of company stock at the price of C85 cents (US58 cents) for gross proceeds of C$1.2 million (U.S.$814,222). The overallotment purchase by underwriter HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc. brings the total offering to C$9.0 million (U.S.$6.2 million).

¿Alza Corp., of Mountain View, Calif., said researchers from the Cleveland Clinic presented positive clinical data on Ditropan XL, a once-daily formulation of oxybutinin for overactive bladder. In a 1,069-patient study, the drug improved quality of life with fewer discontinuations due to adverse events than conventional oxybutynin. The trial results were shared at the International Continence Society's 30th Annual Meeting in Tampere, Finland.

¿Cantab Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, England, said it has reached a final agreement with Glaxo Wellcome plc, of London, on terms to return to Cantab rights to the DISC HSV prophylactic vaccine. The agreement rises from competitive concerns due to Glaxo Wellcome's proposed merger with SmithKline Beecham plc. Upon completion of the merger, expected on or about Sept. 25, Glaxo-Wellcome will make an payment to Cantab of #5.75 million (US$8.33 million).

¿Chiron Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., and PathoGenesis Corp., of Seattle, said the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act as it applies to Chiron's proposed acquisition of PathoGenesis has been terminated early. The companies said no other regulatory filings or approvals remain to close the transaction. Chiron moved to obtain PathoGenesis in August with a $700 million all-cash tender offer for PathoGenesis' outstanding shares at $38.50 per share. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 15, 2000, p. 1.)

¿Cytoclonal Pharmaceutics Inc., of Dallas, said it integrated its platform technologies OASIS and Quantum Core Technology for gene inhibition and drug design, respectively. The combined technologies will target cancer, Alzheimer's disease and the common cold.

¿Epitope Inc., of Beaverton, Ore., said STC Technologies Inc., of Bethlehem, Pa., its proposed merger partner, and Meridian Diagnostics Inc., of Cinncinnati, entered an agreement to exclusively develop, manufacture and sell a group of tests for the detection of parasites, gastrointestinal and upper respiratory diseases using STC's Up-Converting Phosphor technology. Financial terms were undisclosed.

¿IMI International Medical Innovations Inc. said discussions with Procyon Biopharma Inc., of Montreal, to form a joint initiative have been terminated due to Procyon's inability to obtain necessary third-party approvals for the proposed agreement, which would have focused on a series of tests for colorectal cancer screening.

¿Inspire Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Durham, N.C., said underwriters exercised their overalltoment option to purchase an additional 825,000 shares of the company's stock at the initial public offering price of $12 per share. The purchase brings the offering's gross proceeds to $75.9 million. Underwriters for the offering were Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, Chase H&Q and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 4, 2000, p. 1.)

¿Intracel Corp., of Rockville, Md., said a meta-analysis of three late-stage clinical trials showed a significant improvement on the recurrence-free interval and recurrence-free survival rate of Stage II colon cancer patients treated with the company's autologous tumor cell vaccine, OncoVAX. The results from 723 patients in randomized trials approached statistical significance, the company said. OncoVAX has completed Phase III studies for Stage II colon cancer patients, and is in Phase III studies for Stage III colon cancer patients in Europe.

¿Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of Jerusalem, said underwriters for its initial public offering exercised their overallotment option to purchase an additional 600,000 shares at the offering price of $10 per share, bringing the total revenue from the offering to $52 million. Global coordinators for the offering were Roth Capital Partners Inc. and WestLB Panmure Ltd. Roth and Gruntal & Co. LLC were co-managers in the U.S. and WestLB coordinated the offering outside the U.S. (See BioWorld Today, July 31, 2000, p. 1.)

¿King Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bristol, Tenn., said its previously announced merger with Jones Pharma Inc. in a stock-for-stock transaction has been completed. Jones shareholders received 1.125 shares of King stock for each share of Jones stock.

¿Labopharm Inc., of Montreal, said it completed its first group of special warrant placements, yielding revenue of C$12 million (US$8.1 million). The warrants will convert on a one-to-one basis into shares. A second group, anticipated to garner the company C$2.5 million, is expected to close soon. Proceeds from the placements are to be used to aggressively fund product portfolio development, the company said.

¿Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said it discovered a potential target for cardiovascular disease, ACE-regulated carboxypeptidase (ACE2), a human analogue of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE). ACE2 is the first identified human analogue of ACE, a known catalyst in hypertension and congestive heart failure. The discovery is reported in the Aug. 31 edition of Circulation Research, an American Heart Association publication.

¿Micrologix Biotech Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, said it raised about C$8.6 million through the exercise of warrants and after-market support options for the purchase of more than 3.5 million shares. The company now has cash and cash equivalents of $63 million, and just over 39.31 million shares outstanding. The warrants were issued in 1999 as a part of the company's special unit financing.

¿Packard BioScience Co., of Meriden, Conn., said its wholly owned subsidiary, BioSignal Packard Inc., entered a collaboration with the Office of Industrial Liaison of the University of Montreal for a research project that will use BioSignal Packard's Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET2) proteomics technology to develop mammalian cell-based assays for the functional analysis of orphan G protein-coupled receptors.

¿SangStat Medical Corp., of Fremont, Calif., said Italian officials have granted broad marketing approval for Thymoglobuline, the company's anti-thymocyte globulin (rabbit) compound. The drug was approved for the treatment of aplastic anemia in addition to prophylaxis of rejection episodes following kidney, liver and heart transplantation.

¿SynX Pharma Inc., of Toronto, said the University of Liege, Belgium, with which the company has an exclusive agreement for rights to commercialize research applications, has secured patent rights to a method for determining the presence of muscular hyperplasia in mammals. The gene and protein myostatin-related patent could have potential application in the development of genetic diagnostic tests to identify presence of gene mutations that cause muscular hyperplasia.

¿VaxGen Inc., of Brisbane, Calif., and the Bangkok Vaccine Evaluation Group said enrollment is complete in the first large-scale preventive HIV vaccine trial in a developing country. VaxGen and the BVEG said they've enrolled 2,500 participants in the Phase III clinical trial in Thailand to determine if VaxGen's AIDSVAX prevents infection by Asian HIV subtypes. VaxGen is currently testing AIDSVAX in North America in a 5,400-person Phase III trial. Data from that trial are expected to be available for analysis in the fall of 2001.