Associate

Connetics Corp. is planning to raise about $75 million by offering five-year notes, with another $10 million hinged on an overallotment option.

The notes would be convertible into shares of Connetics stock, subject to market and other conditions. It plans to use the funds to strengthen its cash reserves for general corporate purposes, including potential product or company acquisitions, capital expenditures and working capital.

The company reported a net loss for the first quarter of $5.4 million, or 17 cents per share, an increase over 2002's first-quarter loss of $3.2 million. As of March 31, it had $28.9 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. It said in its first-quarter report that it believed its cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, cash generated from product sales and collaborative arrangements with corporate partners would fund operating expenses, debt obligations and capital requirements for "at least the next 12 months."

Its guidance for 2003 estimated products sales for the year of between $62 million and $65 million, with total revenues between $65 million and $68 million. It also predicted it would reach profitability in the second half of 2003, mainly because of its products, Olux and Luxiq.

Olux is a foam indicated for short-term treatment of the inflammatory and pruritic manifestations of moderate to severe corticosteroid-responsive dermatoses of the scalp, as well as for short-term treatment of mild to moderate plaque-type psoriasis of nonscalp regions, excluding the face and intertriginous areas. It generated about $9.9 million in sales in the first quarter, up from about $6.8 million in the year-earlier period.

Luxiq, a foam formulation of betamethasone valerate for inflammatory and pruritic manifestations of corticosteroid-responsive scalp dermatoses, generated about $4.4 million in the first quarter, also an increase.

Connetics, of Palo Alto, Calif., recorded contract and royalty revenues of $1 million in the first quarter. The company received $133,000 from Prometheus Laboratories Inc., of San Diego, for the rheumatoid arthritis product Ridaura, which Connetics sold to Prometheus for $9 million and royalties on sales in excess of $4 million through March 2006. That transaction occurred in the spring of 2001. (See BioWorld Today, May 3, 2001.)

It also received $92,000 in royalties from InterMune Inc. for Actimmune sales in the U.S. Actimmune is approved to treat chronic granulomatous disease and severe, malignant osteopetrosis. Connetics acquired the product from Genentech Inc., of South San Francisco, in 1998 but licensed it to InterMune, of Brisbane, Calif.

Connetics' stock (NASDAQ:CNCT) fell $1.19 Wednesday to close at $15.86.