Oncor

OncorMed Inc., a Gaithersburg biotechnology start-up firm, is looking for $10 million or so from public investors to help it develop its genetic cancer-testing products.The year-old company, which is 83 percent owned by Bethesda-based Oncor Inc., filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday to sell as many as 1.67 million shares and warrants in a public offering. The tentative offering price is $6 a share.The offering is expected in about a month, according to John Coker, chief financial officer of the parent company Oncor, which funded the creation of OncorMed in June 1993.

Paramount nod to Viacom expectedParamount Communications Inc.'s board is expected to vote unanimously today to endorse Viacom Inc.'s $10 billion takeover bid.Some Wall Street traders were saying that the battle was over and that Viacom was the winner, but others were hesitant to predict an outcome."

Bavar set to open own investment firmAfter 22 years at the downtown brokerage firm KLNB Realtors, David Bavar is setting out on his own as an investor, looking for salvageable properties amid the real estate bust."

~TC Despite a 101 percent increase in product sales, Gaithersburg-based biotechnology company Oncor Inc.'s losses grew slightly in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30.For the nine-month period, the company's losses increased to $6.2 million from $2.4 million, which the company attributed to a one-time buyout of a research and development contract for $1.4 million and a doubling of the company's research expenditures.Third-quarter product sales, which does not include revenue from research grants and contracts, increased to a record $1.54 million, compared with $769,206 in the 1991 period.

In one of the most significant scientific collaborations yet for a Maryland company and Johns Hopkins University, Oncor Inc. has agreed to work with a researcher to develop genetic tests to detect cancer.The deal, signed yesterday, gives Gaithersburg-based Oncor the exclusive worldwide rights to any technology that is discovered in the laboratory of David Sidransky, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.Dr. Sidransky worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Bert Vogelstein, a nationally regarded cancer expert who is doing pioneering work on the genetic changes that cause normal cells to turn cancerous.

Nova CEO deals himself out of jobWhen a Nova Pharmaceutical Corp. shareholder stood up to criticize the amount of money chief executive Hans Mueller will receive when he leaves the company in six months, Dr. Mueller wanted to wince.The Nova CEO had just helped design a merger with Scios Inc. that would put him out of a job."I can only assure you I would rather have the job than the cash," Dr. Mueller said in an interview shortly after the formation of the new biotechnology company, Scios Nova Inc., of Mountain View, Calif.

Oncor Inc.This Gaithersburg company, which makes tests for the early detection of cancer, reported yesterday that it lost $3.1 million in the quarter that ended March 31, compared with a loss of $331,976 a year ago.The company attributed part of the loss to a one-time cost of $1.4 million to buy out a contract with Hickley International Ltd. of Ireland, which helped develop a line of tests for colon, prostate, breast and bladder cancers.The buyout ended the company's royalty payments to Hickley, said Stephen Turner, Oncor's chairman and chief executive.