¿ Aclara BioSciences Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., said that underwriters exercised their overallotment option to purchase another 1.35 million share of stock at $21 each in its initial public offering. In total, the company sold 10.35 million shares and netted about $200 million. Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown and Warburg Dillon Read LLC, both of New York, served as joint book-running managers. U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, of Minneapolis, acted as co-manager. (See BioWorld Today, March 22, 2000, p. 1.)

¿ Aphton Corp., of Miami, said Phase II results showed increased survival in advanced pancreatic cancer patients treated with the company's anti-gastrin therapeutic vaccine. The results are from a dose-ranging clinical trial conducted in the UK. Overall median survival of the 30 evaluable patients was 5.7 months, 56 percent greater than the baseline median survival of 4.3 months.

¿ Aquila Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of Framingham, Mass., said it completed a $3.03 million self-directed private placement of 500,000 newly issued shares of common stock. Aquila placed the shares with the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. The company now has about 8.5 million shares of common stock outstanding.

¿ Arius Research Inc., of Toronto, raised C$5 million (US$3.4 million) in an initial public offering that will be used to develop a class of drugs for individualized cancer therapy. Arius will start trading soon on the Canadian Dealing Network. The company offered 1 million shares of common stock and 1 million Class B warrants. Arius is the second company to go public from Toronto-based Skye Pharmatech Inc.'s Sky Incubator Program. Arius' current research is focused on production and testing of monoclonal antibodies related to breast cancer and melanoma. These antibody drugs will enable oncologists to treat specific tumors for individual cancer patients, the company said.

¿ AVI BioPharma, of Portland, Ore., received $1 million and additional undisclosed consideration from Gene Tools LLC, in exchange for an exclusive license for the in vitro diagnostic applications of AVI's third-generation Neugene technology. The previous agreement was a non-exclusive arrangement.

¿ Cell Genesys Inc., of Foster City, Calif., and the Salk Institute, of La Jolla, Calif., reported the successful use of lentiviral vectors in preclinical studies of hemophilia A. Cell Genesys' lentiviral gene delivery system efficiently delivered the full-length Factor VIII gene into target cells in a biologically active form. In addition, biologically active Factor VIII was detected following administration to small laboratory animals.

¿ Cel-Sci Corp., of Vienna, Va., said one of its directors purchased $700,000 of Cel-Sci common stock on top of the recently announced sale of $7 million of the company's common stock to two institutional investors. Terms of the transaction with the director were the same as those with the institutional investors.

¿ Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Irvine, Calif., said it applied for listing on the Nasdaq National Market. The review process may take six to eight weeks.

¿ Enzon Inc., of Piscataway, N.J., said the overallotment option to purchase 300,000 shares of stock at $44.50 was fully exercised by the underwriters. As a result, Enzon raised an additional $12.5 million in proceeds, which brought the total amount raised to about $95.7 million. In total, 2.3 million shares were sold. (See BioWorld Today, March 22, 2000, p. 1.)

¿ Ilex Oncology Inc., of San Antonio, completed the sale of 3 million shares of its common stock at $45 each, which netted the company $127 million. The financing gives the company $210 million in cash. Ilex will use the proceeds to accelerate its clinical trials and preclinical research. (See BioWorld Today, March 8, 2000, p. 1.)

¿ Infectious Disease Research Institute, of Seattle, which is working with Corixa Corp., also of Seattle, received a $15 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a vaccine to prevent leishmaniasis, a skin and visceral disease endemic in the India, Africa, South America and the Middle East. The institute has already tested a prototype leishmaniasis vaccine using Corixa's antigens in Phase I.

¿ Lynx Therapeutics Inc., of Hayward, Calif. said Aventis CropScience, of Lyon, France, renewed its nonexclusive access to Lynx's genomics discovery services, limited to the agricultural field, for one more year. The renewal includes a payment for a fee for genomics discovery services to be performed by Lynx.

¿ NeoRx Corp., of Seattle, said its Skeletal Targeted Radiotherapy product under development has begun testing in patients with Ewing's sarcoma at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, in conjunction with the University of Washington Medical Center and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Ewing's sarcoma is the second most common bone tumor in children and young adults.

¿ Organogenesis Inc., of Canton, Mass., said it received $5 million in advance from Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, Switzerland, due to the continued progress toward gaining diabetic foot ulcer regulatory approval for Apligraf. In December, Organogenesis submitted a PMA supplement to the FDA seeking approval for Apligraf to be marketed for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.