Igen

Igen International Inc. said yesterday that it has won a court injunction barring Roche Holding AG from selling diagnostic products based on Igen technology to physicians' offices and laboratories run by physicians.The U.S. District Court in Greenbelt granted the Gaithersburg company's request for the injunction until a lawsuit over Boehringer Mannheim GmbH's sales to physicians is settled, Igen said.Igen sued Boehringer for breach of contract in September, saying Boehringer's sales to physicians violated a 1992 agreement limiting sales to hospitals, blood banks and clinical reference laboratories.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche has agreed to acquire BioVeris Corp., a Gaithersburg biotechnology business, for $600 million, the companies announced yesterday. Roche said the acquisition would help expand its diagnostics division by adding BioVeris' "electroluminescence" - or ECL - technology, which uses light emissions to help discover new drugs, monitor and diagnose diseases and identify bacteria or toxins in the environment. "In comparison with other detection technologies, ECL offers distinct advantages such as enhanced sensitivity, short incubation times and broad measuring ranges," Severin Schawn, chief executive of Roche Diagnostics, said in a statement.

Gaithersburg-based Igen International Inc. said yesterday that Amgen Inc. has agreed to purchase the company's screening system, which can detect drug activity against a wide range of diseases at the same time.Biotechnology giant Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., is the third major client for the system.In March, drug giant Pfizer Inc. was the first company to sign on for Igen's Origen screening system, followed by Agouron, a La Jolla, Calif.-based biotechnology company.Analysts say the interest from major biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies is not unexpected because Igen's palm-size diagnostic system allows screening in small laboratory settings rather than in large, centralized laboratories.

LONDON - Roche Holdings AG, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, said yesterday that it had agreed to buy Igen International Inc. of Gaithersburg for $1.26 billion - and then give nearly the whole company right back to Igen's shareholders. Roche would come away from the deal with one major benefit: a perpetual license to use Igen's patented amino acid-based technology in its diagnostic tests without paying royalties. Roche already has about $370 million in annual revenue from products based on the technology.

Igen International Inc. said yesterday that it has filed suit in Montgomery County Circuit Court against Boehringer Mannheim GmbH of Germany, claiming that the drug and medical devices company breached a $50 million technology licensing agreement signed in 1992.The lawsuit contends that Boehringer Mannheim failed to make proper royalty payments to Igen on diagnostic tests sold to hospitals and reference laboratories. Those testing devices, the suit says, are based on Igen's technology.Boehringer Mannheim GmbH declined to comment.

Gaithersburg-based IGEN International Inc. said yesterday that it has launched field studies of a test it has developed that can detect the presence of E. coli bacteria in meat and other food.The bacteria have been implicated as the cause of numerous outbreaks of gastrointestinal and renal diseases, including last summer's stomach illnesses from tainted meat processed at a Hudson Foods plant.IGEN, maker of a medical diagnostic device, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an unidentified food producer would participate in the study aimed at evaluating how sensitive the test is to the bacteria.

Igen International Inc. said yesterday that it had raised $30 million by selling more than 1 million shares of common stock to a New York investment fund, providing cash needed for everything from acquisitions to legal bills. Gaithersburg-based Igen, a maker of biological diagnostic tests, said it sold 1,018,808 shares of its stock to Acqua Wellington Private Placement Fund Ltd. and Acqua Wellington Opportunity I Ltd. in a private placement. "This financing enhances our ability to continue advancing our business plan and maximizing shareholder value from all the opportunities before us," Samuel J. Wohlstadter, Igen's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Igen International Inc. said this week that a federal court has refused to lift or amend a court injunction barring Roche Holding AG from selling diagnostic products based on Igen technology to physicians' offices and laboratories.The U.S. District Court in Greenbelt granted Gaithersburg-based Igen's request for the injunction in July 1998.The injunction was issued until a lawsuit over Boehringer Mannheim GmbH's sales to physicians' offices is settled, Igen said.Publicly held Igen sued Boehringer in 1997 for breach of contract, saying Boehringer's sales to physicians' offices violated an agreement in 1992 limiting sales to hospitals, blood banks and clinical-reference laboratories.

Igen International Inc. said yesterday that it has settled its lawsuit against Hitachi Ltd., disposing of an aspect of its larger dispute with Roche Diagnostics that has resulted in a $505 million judgment for Igen. Separately, Igen Chief Financial Officer George V. Migausky said Igen, of Gaithersburg, and Roche continue to have periodic discussions about how to settle the larger case, which Roche is appealing. The most recent discussions, he said, took place within the past month. The January award by a U.S. District Court jury in Greenbelt, widely interpreted as vital to Igen's future, has been stayed pending the appeal.

RICHMOND, Va. - Roche Holding AG may lose its license to use Igen International Inc. technology after an appeals court upheld yesterday Igen's right to end the contract even as the judges reduced by more than $486 million the damages Roche was told to pay. Roche, the world's biggest maker of diagnostic tests, will have to renegotiate the contract or lose access to technology used to evaluate body fluids for illnesses such as cancer and thyroid disorders....

RICHMOND, Va. - Roche Holding AG may lose its license to use Igen International Inc. technology after an appeals court upheld yesterday Igen's right to end the contract even as the judges reduced by more than $486 million the damages Roche was told to pay. Roche, the world's biggest maker of diagnostic tests, will have to renegotiate the contract or lose access to technology used to evaluate body fluids for illnesses such as cancer and thyroid disorders....

Shares of Igen International Inc., the Gaithersburg-based maker of blood-testing equipment, rose yesterday after the company announced that it had made progress in recent settlement talks with Roche Diagnostics in a dispute over a licensing agreement. At one point yesterday, Igen shares were up slightly more than 17 percent after the company expressed confidence that it might eventually reach an agreement with Roche to settle the long-standing dispute. Igen shares settled back in afternoon trading before closing at $30.25, up $1.25, or 4 percent.

Igen International Inc. said yesterday that it has settled its lawsuit against Hitachi Ltd., disposing of an aspect of its larger dispute with Roche Diagnostics that has resulted in a $505 million judgment for Igen. Separately, Igen Chief Financial Officer George V. Migausky said Igen, of Gaithersburg, and Roche continue to have periodic discussions about how to settle the larger case, which Roche is appealing. The most recent discussions, he said, took place within the past month. The January award by a U.S. District Court jury in Greenbelt, widely interpreted as vital to Igen's future, has been stayed pending the appeal.

For the past month, the shares of tiny, money-losing Igen International Inc. have traded at a daily average near $40, making them more valuable than the shares of many far larger companies - including international pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG. Even so, some analysts believe, buying a slice of the Gaithersburg-based maker of medical diagnostics should cost even more: $79, $80, even $100 a share. Why? Because its recent court victory has put Igen in a position to get far more out of Roche Diagnostics than the $505 million in damages awarded by the jury.

Igen International Inc. said yesterday that its fiscal third-quarter loss narrowed as revenue grew and litigation costs were offset by a payment from its rival in a breach-of-contract suit, Roche Diagnostics. Based in Gaithersburg, the maker of diagnostic tests said it lost $9.2 million, or 48 cents per share, on revenue of $10.4 million. That compares with a loss of $16 millon, or $1.04 per share, on revenue of $8.5 million in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, 2000. The company said the 23 percent increase in quarterly revenue was due to increases in royalty income, product sales and contract revenue.

Igen International Inc.'s stock rose nearly 10.6 percent to a 52-week high of $42.15 yesterday, the day after the Gaithersburg company won a $505 million judgment against Roche Diagnostics GmbH. A federal jury in Greenbelt found Thursday that Roche Diagnostics broke a 1992 contract by underpaying royalties to Igen and by selling Igen's patented diagnostic test to markets not included in the agreement. Roche, the world's largest diagnostic testing company, plans to appeal the $505 million award to Igen, which had sales of $31.4 million in fiscal year 2001.

A federal judge has ruled that a German pharmaceutical company breached its contract with Igen International Inc. by settling a patent infringement lawsuit with another company without Igen's permission and by failing to stop development of a competing product line. The summary judgments in favor of Igen are the latest chapter in the Gaithersburg company's 4-year-old lawsuit against Roche Diagnostics GmbH as the two companies head for a court showdown in October. Analysts said that the judge's rulings strengthen Igen's position.

Gaithersburg-based IGEN International Inc. said yesterday that it has acquired worldwide licensing rights to an amino acid compound that it hopes to use to develop a breakthrough test for detecting signs of heart disease.The market for an easy-to-use, accurate test for heart disease could be vast, said analysts, although it is unclear whether the test IGEN hopes to develop would displace electrocardiograms and other sophisticated technology used to detect heart trouble.Specific terms of IGEN's deal with Medinnova SF of Norway were not disclosed.

A federal jury awarded tiny Igen International Inc. $505 million yesterday from the world's No. 1 diagnostic testing company, capping a David vs. Goliath trial in which Igen claimed it was fighting for its life. Gaithersburg-based Igen, a $36 million-a-year company that sued industry giant Roche Diagnostics five years ago in a bid to win monetary damages and regain rights to its flagship technology, greeted the verdict in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt as a near-total victory. Roche executives, however, said that the award was substantially less than the more than $1 billion Igen had sought and said it would appeal the verdict, which awarded $105 million in compensatory damages and $400 million in punitive ones.

Roche Diagnostics should pay more than $1 billion in damages to Igen International Inc., a company Roche sought to "damage and destroy" through breach of contract, an Igen lawyer told jurors yesterday in closing arguments in the nearly 5-year- old case. As Igen Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Samuel J. Wohlstadter, members of his family and about 70 others looked on in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Igen lawyer Brent Gurney spent more than two hours arguing that the jury in the civil case should award $709.