¿ Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., got a positive ruling Friday in its court battle with Transkaryotic Therapies Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., according to PaineWebber Inc. The judge said TKT and partner Hoechst Marion Roussel failed to prove anticipation and obviousness of Amgen's patent claims for EPO, leaving three defenses available to TKT: overbreadth, written description and enablement. No rulings were made with respect to infringement. The trial will resume Friday with Amgen's rebuttal case. Amgen's stock (NASDAQ:AMGN) gained $3.93 on the news to close at $78. TKT (NASDAQ:TKTX) fell $3.87 to close at $31.125.
¿ Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., said its board of directors approved a 2-for-1 stock split. One new share of stock will be awarded each shareholder at the close of business August 10. The company had 27.6 million shares outstanding prior to the split.
¿ Cytran Inc., of Kirkland, Wash., said its Kaposi's sarcoma drug, IM862, will undergo a nationwide Phase III trial that will include about 200 patients and centers in 15 cities. Cytran presented Phase I/II data on the drug, a naturally-occurring 2-amino-acid peptide, last year, and outlined its plans for the Phase III study. (See BioWorld Today, May 18, 1999, p. 1)
¿ DeCode Genetics Inc., of Reykjavik, Iceland, said Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, the underwriter for its initial public offering earlier this month, exercised in full its overallotment option on 1.44 million shares at $18 per share. After the overallotment the company has 44.4 million shares outstanding. With the overallotment, the IPO grossed $198.7 million.
¿ Human Genome Sciences Inc., of Rockville, Md., said it expects to get a portion of the up-front payment and potential milestone and royalty payments received by MedImmune Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., through MedImmune's recently signed agreement with SmithKline Beecham Biologicals, of London. HGS and MedImmune have a 1997 agreement under which HGS shared genetic sequence data on Streptococcus pneumoniae in exchange for a licensing fee and portions of future clinical development milestone and royalty fees. MedImmune agreed with SmithKline Beecham last week on a $30 million outlicensing deal for a new vaccine. (See BioWorld Today, July 21, 2000, p. 1.)
¿ Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Boulder, Colo., said it received a $1 million payment from Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis, related to achievement of an undisclosed milestone related to development of LY 466700, a ribozyme in clinical testing for hepatitis C. Separately, RPI said recent claims made by Gene Shears Pty Ltd., of Canberra, Australia, in a European patent dispute were "misleading." RPI said the European Patent Office's clarification of the scope of RPI's claims on self-splicing intervening sequence derived ribozymes with endoribonuclease activity did not significantly narrow RBI's scope of coverage.
¿ Transgenomic Inc., of Omaha, Neb., said underwriter Chase H&Q exercised in full its overallotment option on 762,000 shares of common stock at $15 per share in connection with the company's initial public offering last week. Transgenomic now has 18.4 million shares outstanding. The gross now on the IPO is about $78.6 million.