¿ Avigen Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., started a Phase I trial of Coagulin-B, its adeno-associated virus (AAV) based gene therapy treatment, for hemophilia B. It is the first attempt to treat hemophilia B using gene therapy and AAV, the company said.

¿ BioChem Pharma Inc., of Laval, Quebec, will purchase for cancellation 8 million of its common shares at $20 per share held by Glaxo Wellcome plc, of London. Payment will take place in two stages: $80 million will be paid upon the transaction¿s closing and the remaining $80 million in 18 months. As a result, Glaxo Wellcome¿s holding will decrease from 12.2 percent to 5.3 percent.

¿ Biogen Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., authorized a 2-for-1 common stock split. The split will be effected through a stock dividend of one share for each share of common stock outstanding and the dividend will be payable on June 25. As a result of the split, the number of outstanding shares will increase to approximately 150 million.

¿ CellPro Inc., of Seattle, will make a distribution of funds to creditors on June 18, according to a plan approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington. The distribution will pay all creditors the full amount. The company changed its name to CPX Corp. and will continue to trade on the NASDAQ Bulletin Board under the symbol ¿CPRO.¿

¿ Columbus Molecular Software Inc., of Columbus, Ohio, will collaborate with Pfizer Inc., of New York, to use and develop Columbus Molecular¿s chemistry-based decision support system to identify new drug development candidates. Pfizer will provide data, product development guidance and initial funding.

¿ Fujirebio Diagnostics Inc., of Malvern, Pa., submitted a premarket approval application for its CA19-9 RIA test kit as a diagnostic adjunct to radiological imaging techniques in the detection of pancreatic, biliary or gall bladder cancer.

¿ Incyte Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., and NV Organon, of Oss, the Netherlands, expanded their 1997 genomic partnership. Organon now will receive access to the LifeSeq Gold assembled database, the ZooSeq animal model database and data from Incyte¿s GEM microarray technology in exchange for annual access and per-array fees. Incyte also could receive future milestone payments and royalties on sales of products developed with Incyte technology and database information. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ SangStat Medical Corp., of Menlo Park, Calif., reported that its SangCya (cyclosporine oral solution) received approval for inclusion on the Illinois state formulary from the Illinois Technical Advisory Council. The council must re-review FDA approvals before a generic can be substituted in the state. The FDA ruled that SangaCya is the bioequivalent to and interchangeable with Neoral oral solution, which is marketed by Novartis AG, of Basel, Switzerland.

¿ Synsorb Biotech Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, licensed technology for the treatment of lung complications associated with cystic fibrosis from a consortium that includes the Canadian Bacterial Disease Network and the University of Alberta. In animal studies, the licensed carbohydrate-based compounds demonstrated utility in both reducing the viscosity of mucous and inhibiting the proliferation of bacteria in the lungs of patients.