Washington Editor

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. is raising about $32 million after agreeing to sell more than 5.1 million common shares at $6.25 apiece in a registered direct offering.

The company, of Irvine, Calif., plans to use proceeds to fund clinical trials of its lead product candidates, such as the recently begun registrational trials of EOquin for non-invasive bladder cancer and pending pivotal work on ozarelix in benign prostate hypertrophy. Funds also will go toward clinical and preclinical studies of other products. Additional money will be used for potential licenses and acquisitions of other businesses or complementary products and technologies, and for working capital, capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes.

Spectrum had about $45.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of March 31, and about 25.7 million shares outstanding on April 27.

Oppenheimer & Co., of New York, acted as the offering's lead placement agent, with Lazard Capital Markets LLC, also of New York, its co-lead placement agent. Rodman & Renshaw LLC, of New York, and ThinkEquity Partners LLC, of San Francisco, were co-placement agents. The offering is expected to close Wednesday, subject to certain customary conditions.

Spectrum's stock (NASDAQ:SPPI) lost 4 cents Monday to close at $6.51.

In other financing news:

• Sidec Technologies AB, of Stockholm, Sweden, raised SEK68.5 million (US$10.2 million) in private funding. The company, which provides to drug developers its Protein Tomography platform for the 3-dimensional visualization of cellular events at the molecular level, plans to use the funds to build its sales and marketing capabilities and to support its ongoing technology developments. A new investor, Earlybird Venture Capital, led the financing, which also included Swedish Investor Growth Capital and Industrifonden, an earlier venture partner.

• Bioenvision Inc., of New York, received $7.4 million after existing investors exercised previously issued warrants. Perseus-Soros Biopharmaceutical Fund LP exercised warrants to purchase 3 million common shares at $2 apiece, and SCO Capital and its affiliates exercised warrants to purchase 938,333 shares at $1.50 each. The warrants were issued five years ago in a private stock-and-warrant placement and have been exercisable since that date, but would have expired on Monday if not exercised.

• AMDL Inc., of Tustin, Calif., is raising about $3.8 million in gross proceeds through the sale of up to 2 million common shares and warrants for up to another million. The first closing consisted of about 1.4 million shares at $2.625 apiece and three-and-a-half-year warrants to purchase an additional 721,810 shares, exercisable at $3.86 each. Warrants for another 144,362 shares were issued to the placement agents at the same exercise price. The offering will continue until units for up to an additional 556,380 shares and warrants to purchase 278,190 more have been sold, or until it is terminated by the diagnostic company.

• Upstream Biosciences Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, closed the second and final tranche of its unit financing announced earlier this year, receiving the remaining $1 million for total proceeds of $2 million after completing all required corporate milestones. On closing the second tranche, the company issued an additional 666,667 shares and about 1.3 million Series A and Series B warrants. The units were issued at $1.50 apiece, with each consisting of one common share, one Series A share purchase warrant and one Series B share purchase warrant. Each Series A purchase warrant is exercisable at $1.75 per share, and each Series B purchase warrant is exercisable at $1.85 per share.

• ImaRx Therapeutics Inc., of Tucson, Ariz., refiled for its initial public offering. All the shares would be sold by the company, which is developing therapies for vascular disorders. ImaRx late last year withdrew its IPO filing, citing unfavorable market conditions. The company had registered to sell 5 million shares between $10 and $12. Maxim Group LLC, of New York, is acting as the newly proposed offering's underwriter and book-running manager. The per-share price range has yet to be disclosed. (See BioWorld Today, May 23, 2006.)

• Cytyc Corp., of Marlborough, Mass., made a venture investment of an undisclosed amount in Combinent BioMedical Systems Inc., of Cambridge, Mass. The early stage company is developing a vaginal drug delivery platform for delivering a combination of drugs, currently given orally and intravenously, in a single device. Other investors include VIMAC Ventures and Commons Capital.

• PharmaGap Inc., of Ottawa, Ontario, said it is gaining a C$550,000 (US$500,000) investment from Dundee Securities Corp. Dundee acquired 2 million common equity units and 2.4 million Series I preferred shares, and now owns 9.4 percent of the common shares outstanding. The company, which is developing compounds for cancer, also is offering by way of a private placement up to C$1.95 million of units to accredited investors at the same price. The C$0.125 units consist of one common share and a two-year warrant to acquire a common share for C$0.165.