¿ Biosense Inc., a Warren, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson company, and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharmaceuticals Inc. (RPR), of Collegeville, Pa., are collaborating to begin clinical trials of a product incorporating RPR¿s angiogenic FGF1 gene with a Biosense cardiac catheter delivery system. Initial studies will be done at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.

¿ BTG International Inc., of Gulph Mills, Pa., granted LeukoSite Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., a worldwide exclusive license to its anti-CD3 antibody technology for treating transplant rejection. The license included a humanized, aglycosylated antibody that binds to CD3. LeukoSite¿s Campath-1 cancer product in pivotal studies also was licensed from BTG.

¿ IGEN International Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., said Pfizer Inc., of New York, was the first pharmaceutical company to receive its M-Series High-Throughput Screening System, signaling launch of the product. IGEN said 10 companies made commitments to buy the system.

¿ NaviCyte Inc., of San Diego, entered into an agreement with Schering-Plough Corp., of Madison, N.J., to collaborate on the use and development of NaviCyte¿s proprietary Pk-informatics tools to identify new drug development candidates. Schering-Plough will provide data and make initial and milestone payments over the course of development of NaviCyte¿s proprietary In Vitro Determination for Evaluation of Adsorption (IDEA) simulation software system and database. NaviCyte will license to Schering-Plough its software and computational models for use with Schering-Plough¿s compound libraries. NaviCyte is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trega Biosciences Inc., of San Diego.

¿ Sangamo Biosciences Inc., of Point Richmond, Calif., signed an agreement to provide its Universal GeneTools to Japan Tobacco Inc., of Tokyo, for validation of gene targets for drug discovery. It is the ninth such collaboration for Sangamo. Terms were not disclosed.

¿ Transgene, of Strasbourg, France, began a second Phase II trial of its Vero-IL2 product in Freiburg, Germany. The trial will include 20 patients with malignant mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer. The product is an immortal cell line modified to produce the cytokine IL-2, which helps stimulate the immune system. The first Phase II trial is in malignant melanoma.