Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. has agreed to sell 6 million shares of common stock at $17.14 per share and senior notes at an initial conversion price of about $23.14 per share, in two separate offerings that will raise up to $405.8 million, the company said.

The offerings were "not unexpected," said UBS analyst Annabel Samimy, adding that the company needed cash to fund its Phase III program. The money raised from the public offerings may get Vertex much of the way through Phase III and the regulatory process, but additional financing may be needed for commercialization, Samimy told BioWorld Today.

In March, Vertex is expected to begin enrolling patients in two Phase III studies of telaprevir, its lead investigational hepatitis C protease inhibitor.

The public stock offering of $102 million includes an option for underwriters to purchase up to an additional 900,000 shares of common stock on the same terms and conditions to cover overallotments, if any, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company said.

Vertex also said it has agreed to sell the $250 million aggregate principal amount of 4.75 percent convertible senior subordinated notes due in 2013. Underwriters would have an option to purchase up to an additional $37.5 million aggregate principal amount of notes.

The notes will be convertible by holders into shares of Vertex common stock at an initial conversion rate of 43.2171 shares of common stock per $1,000 principal amount of notes (subject to adjustment in certain circumstances), representing an initial conversion price of approximately $23.14 per share, the company said.

The closing of each offering is not contingent upon the other.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. is acting as the sole bookrunner, with Morgan Stanley & Co., Goldman Sachs & Co. and J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. acting as co-managers for the offerings.

Vertex shares (NASDAQ:VRTX) were up on news of the public offerings, closing at $19.14 Wednesday, up $2, or 11.7 percent.

In other financing news,

• Acorda Therapeutics Inc., of Hawthorne, N.Y., said it has agreed to sell 3.3 million shares of common stock at $21.50 per share, in a public offering totaling $69 million. Underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 495,000 shares of common stock at the public offering price. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to complete its second Phase III Fampridine-SR trial in multiple sclerosis. In addition, the money will be used for activities related to filing a new drug application for the drug candidate and preparing for market launch, if approved.

• Echo Therapeutics Inc., of Franklin, Mass., said it completed a nearly $2.3 million private financing with Montaur Capital through Platinum Long Term Growth VII LLC and other investors of senior unsecured convertible notes and warrants. Senior convertible notes to be issued in the financing will bear interest annually at a rate of 8 percent a year and will provide investors with the right to convert principal into shares of Echo Therapeutics common stock at $1.35 per share. In addition, the investors received warrants to purchase 849,058 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $1.69 per share for a term of five years. Echo, a specialty pharmaceuticals and diagnostics company, expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for product development, working capital and general corporate purposes.

• Optimata Ltd., of Ramat Gan, Israel, said it successfully completed a private placement of $1.5 million from a new group of private European investors. The proceeds will enable Optimata to complete the evaluation process required for selecting discontinued drug candidates that are most suitable for repurposing. In the next few months, the company said it plans to make a final selection of one or two compounds and use its technology to significantly improve the compounds' safety and efficacy profiles.

• Oragenics Inc., of Alachua, Fla., said the company will gain an additional $500,000 due to seven shareholders exercising warrants as part of their March 2006 investment in the company. With the exercise of the warrants, approximately 1.1 million warrants from the March 2006 private placement have been exercised. The company plans to use the proceeds of the warrant exercise to support its lead product development programs in the area of treating bacterial infections.

• Theratechnologies Inc., of Montreal, Canada, said it completed its public offering of 3.5 million common shares at $8.50 per share, for gross proceeds of $29.75 million. The net proceeds of the offering will be used primarily to finance the continuing development of lead drug candidate tesamorelin and part of its commercialization efforts, and for working capital purposes, the company said.

• Third Wave Technologies Inc., of Madison, Wis., said it filed a universal shelf registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would allow the diagnostic kits maker to sell up to $100 million of securities. Terms of any offering under the registration statement will be established at the time of the offering.