* Quintiles Transnational Corp., of Morrisville, N.C., acquired twocontract research organizations recently. The company boughtFrance-based Benefit International S.A. and its subsidiaries for $16million in cash and stock and purchased San Diego Clinical *Research Associates in a stock swap valued at $3.4 million.

* Synsorb Biotech Inc., of Calgary, Canada, has proposed theacquisition of Chembiomed Ltd., of Edmonton, Canada. Synsorb saidit was founded with technology developed by Chembiomed.

* Hemosol Inc., of Toronto, said Phase I studies of Hemolink, its firsthuman red blood cell substitute, were started in Montreal.

* ID Biomedical Corp., of Vancouver, B.C., closed on a previouslyannounced private placement of 445,000 special warrants atCanadian $18 apiece, for gross proceeds of about Canadian $8million.

* Pharmacia Biotech AB, of New York, introduced ALFexpress, anautomated DNA sequencer for sequencing and fragment analysis.

* Sheffield Medical Technologies Inc., of New York, closed a privateplacement of 412,500 units, at $8 apiece, and received $3.3. Eachunit consisted of two shares of the company's stock (AMEX:SHM)and a warrant to purchase one share at $5.

Other News To Note

Centocor Inc., of Malvern, Pa., said ReoPro, an anti-platelet drug,has been cleared for marketing in Germany and France for high-riskangioplasty patients. Centocor is selling the drug in collaborationwith Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis. ReoPro also is approved inthe U.K. and is on the market in the U.S., Sweden, The Netherlands.

Chiron Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., won another round in its on-going patent dispute with International Murex Technologies Corp., ofAtlanta, related to hepatitis C (HCV) screening tests. The DistrictCourt in The Hague has issued an injunction against Murexpreventing it from selling its HCV tests in Holland, Belgium, Spainand France. Last December, International Murex was enjoined fromselling its HCV tests in the U.K.

GenVec Inc., of Rockville, Md., said its gene therapy vector underdevelopment for treatment of cystic fibrosis was granted orphan drugstatus by the FDA. GenVec's adenovirus-based vector is in Phase Itrials.

Xoma Corp., of Berkeley, Calif., said it completed a cross-licensingagreement for antibody engineering technologies with Enzon Inc., ofPiscataway, N.J., and Creative BioMolecules Inc., of Hopkinton,Mass. Xoma gets rights to single-chain antigen-binding proteins andrelated technologies of Enzon and Creative BioMolecules forproducts targeting T cells. In return, Enzon and CreativeBioMolecules were granted rights to Xoma's bacterial secretiontechnology for production of single-chain antigen-binding protein.

Pharma Mar, S.A., of Madrid, and the Pasteur Institute, of Paris,entered a collaboration to study Pharma Mar's compounds,dehydrodidemin B, for treating HIV.

(c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.