By Brady Huggett

Oxford GlycoSciences plc filed a registration statement with the SEC for a #150 million (US$215 million) offering of its ordinary shares on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, intending to give the company a stronger U.S. presence.

Until Dec. 5, shares will be offered on a nontransferable, pro rata, preemptive basis to current OGS shareholders. Each shareholder will have the right to subscribe for its pro rata portion of #150 million, based on the number of shares held on Nov. 3, the record date.

Following the offer to current stockholders, shares will be offered publicly at a price to be set through a competitive book-building process after Dec. 5. In the United States, the shares will be offered as American Depository Shares, expected to be traded on Nasdaq under the symbol OGSI.

The offering will be lead-managed by Lehman Brothers and co-managed by Credit Suisse First Boston and Cazenove & Co., all of New York. Proceeds will be used for drug discovery and development programs for small molecules and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies; to complete clinical trials and commercialization of its lead candidate, Vevesca; to develop new technology and further expand its drug discovery and development facilities; and for general corporate purposes.

OGS, of Oxford, England, went public on the London Stock Exchange (LSE:OGS) in the spring of 1998. Just prior to that, OGS signed a $50 million deal with Pfizer Inc., of New York. It already had a pact with Incyte Genomics Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., and that led to a deal with diaDexus, of Santa Clara, Calif. OGS announced a deal with Packard BioScience Co., of Meriden, Conn., in September and agreed with Applied Biosystems (formerly PE BioSystems), of Foster City, Calif., for access to its mass spectrometers. OGS has business in the states, something that factored into the decision to seek a Nasdaq listing. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 27, 2000, and April 4, 2000.)

"About a third of our investors are in the U.S., so it makes things easier for them, and it gives us a U.S. acquisition currency," Michael Kranda, CEO of OGS, told BioWorld International in September. Kranda said OGS would use the listing for future U.S. acquisitions.

OGS is building its pipeline of proprietary drug candidates and proprietary diagnostic products relating to cancer, infectious disease and glycolipid storage. Its most advanced drug candidate, Vevesca (formerly OGT 918), is undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of Gaucher's disease. It was given orphan medicinal product designation by the European Commission for the EU.

OGS' stock moved down #3.30 on Monday, or about 14 percent, to close at #19.95.