Icos Corp. said Monday that it signed the first two agreementswith Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory researchers under abroader agreement reached last October.

The Seattle-based company said it signed agreements withBruce Futcher, whose research is focused on certain areas ofcell growth and metabolism, and Nicholas Tonks, who isworking on targeting kinase, an enzyme family involved in cellactivation.

No financial details of the two agreements were disclosed.

"It fits right into our overall program," said Janice M. LeCoq,Icos' executive vice president. "They are consistent with ourinterest in signal transduction," the process by which keymolecules inside a cell convey messages into the nucleus.

Icos (NASDAQ:ICOS) late last year reached a five-year generalagreement with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in NewYork that provided a framework for Icos to make subsequentpacts with individual researchers. Under the larger agreement,Icos agreed to fund jointly managed research at the laboratoryand would have the option to license resulting inventions,while CSHL would receive royalties on sales of licensedproducts.

The company also said it issued 135,000 shares of Icos stock,which will be vested to CSHL over time. Icos in 1990exclusively licensed the laboratory's technology to introduceindividual human genes in unique strains of yeast as a drugscreening method.

"These agreements provide an important conduit for realizingthe commercial potential of discoveries made by our scientists,"said James Watson, CSHL's director.

Icos stock closed Monday at $8 a share, up 25 cents.

Icos has established other research collaborations with theUniversity of Washington, the University of Utah and theDoheny Eye Institute of the University of Southern California.

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