Biospherics

This Greenbelt-based biotechnology company reported growth in revenues and profits for the first quarter, in large part because of a strong performance by the company's Information Services Division.The company said its Environmental and Laboratory Services Division reduced its loss, despite lower revenues, by instituting cost-cutting measures.Also during the first quarter, Pfizer Inc. purchased the right to negotiate with Biospherics for the commercialization of D-tagatose, Biospherics' patented, non-fattening sugar.

ORACLE, Ariz. - As for-sale listings go, this one is a real fixer-upper: a 10-bedroom, five-bath glass house situated in Arizona's Sonoran Desert. The landscaping is lush, but it's a bit overgrown. There's a million-gallon pool, but the water is brackish. The utility bills are a bear - about $1 million a year. And the place is infested with five species of cockroaches and overrun with voracious ants. But if you're looking for a one-of-a-kind property set amid nearly 1,300 acres of cactus and tumbleweeds with spectacular mountain views, then the 137,000-square-foot Biosphere 2 just might be for you. This outsized glass terrarium was the place where eight scientists locked themselves inside in 1991 and lived for two years in hermetically sealed isolation, seeking to discover whether humans could replicate the ecology of Biosphere 1 - the Earth - inside a bubble, grow all their food and survive without help from the outside world.

Biospherics Inc. of Beltsville said yesterday that it would proceed without Pfizer Inc. to begin testing its low-calorie sweetener, D-tagatose, and that it hoped to market the product overseas within a couple years.After eight months evaluating the Biospherics product, Pfizer said the test results were encouraging, but that it would not go ahead developing the product as quickly as Biospherics wanted, said Gilbert V. Levin, president of the company.Biospherics said it had already made enough of the sweetener to begin tests in an industrial toxicology laboratory.

NEW YORK -- Columbia University plans to curtail sharply its financial support for Biosphere 2, the ambitious but troubled effort to simulate Earth's ecology under glass. The university is under contract with the owner of the Biosphere, a 250-acre research center in the desert north of Tucson, Ariz., to manage it until 2010. Three years ago, the university trustees approved $20 million to expand research and teaching programs there until 2005. But those efforts, and the fate of the center, are in doubt, many scientists and officials involved with the partnership said.

Biospherics Inc. said yesterday that it won a contract to operate the reservations system for the National Park Service and expects to hire up to 200 employees to staff a call center in Cumberland.The publicly held company, based in Beltsville, said the contract is for a period of two years. The Park Service has the option to renew the contract on an annual basis for three years.Biospherics, which holds federal and state contracts to operate other information call centers, estimated that the contract would be worth $12 million in revenue if it is chosen to fulfill the contract for the five-year period.

A Beltsville company that is trying to develop a sugar substitute that can be easily used in baking took a step toward getting the product on the market yesterday by winning a key patent, but the company's chief executive said the product is still years from the market.Biospherics Inc. said it had won a patent for calcium tagatate, a compound it uses in a previously patented process for making D-Tagatose, an artificial sugar derived from whey, a dairy byproduct.The company's chief executive, Gilbert Levin, said the new patent helped intensify the company's talks with potential investors, which are major food companies that would add the sugar substitute to their products.

No firm on Wall Street has an analyst who follows it. Only one firm anyone outside Wall Street junkies ever heard of even trades it. Legg Mason and T. Rowe Price, two of Baltimore's leading securities firms, say they don't own it.So how has Biospherics Inc. of Beltsville seen its roughly 4 million shares gain $75 million of value in the past week, propelling the tiny biotechnology company that made 5 cents a share in the first half of this year to a...

Stock in Beltsville-based Biospherics Inc. soared 72 percent yesterday, after the firm announced plans to sell a new low-calorie sweetener in overseas markets early next year.Vice President Lee R. Zehner said the plan became viable after the sweetener passed two testing milestones: creation of chocolate candies and spearmint chewing gums, and lab reports showing no toxic effects on animals that ate large amounts of it in addition to their normal diets.The stock shot up nearly 60 percent on the Nasdaq exchange within an hour after Mr. Zehner's announcement.

A Beltsville company that is trying to develop a sugar substitute that can be easily used in baking took a step toward getting the product on the market yesterday by winning a key patent, but the company's chief executive said the product is still years from the market.Biospherics Inc. said it had won a patent for calcium tagatate, a compound it uses in a previously patented process for making D-Tagatose, an artificial sugar derived from whey, a dairy byproduct.The company's chief executive, Gilbert Levin, said the new patent helped intensify the company's talks with potential investors, which are major food companies that would add the sugar substitute to their products.

More than half of Biospherics Inc.'s $20-per-share gain over the past week evaporated yesterday in the wake of two skeptical media reports.Biospherics stock fell $10.25, to $15.25, in over-the-counter trading of 1.6 million shares. The stock initially rose to $27 early in the day, fell to about $18 by 11 a.m. and then collapsed after CNBC reporter Dan Dorfman quoted unnamed sources as predicting that Biospherics shares would fall to only $5.The shares traded at $4.25 as recently as March and at about $6.50 last week.

Biospherics Inc., a Beltsville-based biotechnology company, said yesterday that its patented low-calorie sweetener received approval from an independent panel of qualified experts, a finding that effectively clears the way for its sale in the United States. Biospherics stands to reap royalties from a roughly $2 billion world market for tagatose, a sweetener that "tastes, looks, feels and performs like table sugar," according to a company statement. "The approval was tremendously important," said Dr. Gilbert V. Levin, Biospherics' chief executive officer and chairman.

Biospherics Inc. said yesterday that it could be getting closer to finally making money from production of a sugar substitute it developed a decade ago.The Beltsville company sold licensing rights to the substitute, called D-tagatose, three years ago to MD Foods Ingredients, a Danish dairy producer. MD Foods will produce tagatose, sell it to food manufacturers and pay royalties on the sales to Biospherics.In what Biospherics executives hope is a sign that MD Foods is getting ready to go into high gear on production of tagatose, the Danish company said it is planning to merge with the Swedish dairy-and-food products company Arla.

Biospherics Inc. said yesterday that it won a contract to operate the reservations system for the National Park Service and expects to hire up to 200 employees to staff a call center in Cumberland.The publicly held company, based in Beltsville, said the contract is for a period of two years. The Park Service has the option to renew the contract on an annual basis for three years.Biospherics, which holds federal and state contracts to operate other information call centers, estimated that the contract would be worth $12 million in revenue if it is chosen to fulfill the contract for the five-year period.

Beltsville-based Biospherics, Inc. said yesterday that it has raised $3 million to launch a subsidiary that will provide health care information and guidance to health maintenance organizations, HMO members and self-insured employer groups.Jeffrey W. Church, Biospherics' vice president and chief financial officer, said the money was raised from a single institutional investment group in a private offering.The investor, which the company declined to identify, purchased 375,000 units, each comprising two shares of common stock and two warrants.

The location of Biospherics Inc.'s headquarters was incorrect in an article in yesterday's editions. The company is in Beltsville.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 12/20/97

The location of Biospherics Inc.'s headquarters was incorrect in an article in yesterday's editions. The company is in Beltsville.The Sun regrets the error.A federal judge has thrown out a libel suit filed against the publisher of Forbes magazine by Biospherics Inc., a Columbia-based company which has developed a nonfattening sugar substitute.Biospherics filed the lawsuit against Forbes Inc. in July, contending that its stock price declined and the company had difficulty raising capital as a result of a column that appeared under the heading "Money & Investments," in the Jan. 13 issue of the business publication.

Shares in Biospherics Inc. dropped 38 percent yesterday, after gum giant Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. disputed that it is seeking a patent to use a sweetener the Beltsville company developed.More than 2.5 million shares traded hands as the stock dropped $4.593 to close at $7.531.Biospherics President and Chief Executive Officer Gilbert V. Levin reacted angrily to Wrigley's denial of the patent filing, which his company announced in a press release Wednesday. Biospherics share price tripled after the release.

Biospherics Inc., a Beltsville-based company that has developed a sugar substitute called D-Tagatose, yesterday filed a $15 million libel lawsuit against Forbes magazine and a reporter.A spokesman in the legal department of Forbes declined comment yesterday.Biospherics contends in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, that its stock price declined and that the company had subsequent difficulty raising capital as a result of a column that appeared under the heading Money & Investments in the Jan. 13 issue of the widely read publication.