MedImmune Inc. and Merck & Co. Inc. said Tuesday they havecompleted an agreement announced Oct. 22 to jointly developand market proprietary monoclonal antibodies against theAIDS virus.

Merck will provide $13 million in funding over three years inexchange for all rights to any product that emerges fromMedImmune's immunotherapy approach to AIDS. Gaithersburg,Md.-based MedImmune will retain worldwide co-promotionrights. The collaboration has a lead MAb, MEDI488, in smallanimal studies.

Merck previously had an agreement with Repligen Corp. todevelop an anti-infective MAb against AIDS. Repligen isreacquiring rights to the MAb and will continue developmenton its own. In October, Merck and Repligen presented data thata chimp injected with HIV-1 and then infused with the MAbremained free of HIV infection since the test was begun inMarch.

MedImmune shares (NASDAQ:MEDI) closed up $3 at $38 onTuesday. When the original announcement was made, its stockclimbed $11.88 to close at $47 before declining in theNovember sell-off that punished developers of AIDS vaccines.Repligen (NASDAQ:RGEN) picked up $38 cents to $14.50 onTuesday. It had been trading at $29 before the Merckcollaboration dissolved. -- KB

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