By Lisa Seachrist

Washington Editor

Just one day after announcing a private placement worth $34.5 million, computational genomics specialist Compugen Ltd. filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based Compugen intends to offer 5 million shares of its common stock priced at $10 to $12 per share. At the midpoint of that range, Compugen would raise $55 million for research and development, sales and marketing, possible acquisitions and other general corporate purposes.

Robertson Stephens Inc., of San Francisco, is serving as the lead underwriter for the offering. U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, of Minneapolis, and Invemed Associates LLC, of New York, also are underwriting the offering. The company is extending a 30-day option to the underwriters to purchase up to 750,000 additional shares to cover overallotments.

The company will have approximately 25.2 million shares outstanding upon completion of the offering.

Compugen combines the fields of advanced mathematics and computer science with molecular biology to improve the understanding of genomics and proteomics. The company's principle technology is the LEADS bioinformatics platform for the analysis of genomic and protein data.

LEADS allows thorough mining of expressed sequence tag (EST) databases, combined analysis of EST and genomic data and polymorphism detection and qualification. In addition the technology permits pattern recognition in complex expression results from DNA chips and microarrays and proteomics.

Compugen scientists have used the LEADS technology to discover 4,000 previously unidentified genes in the publicly available database. Through its Novel Genomics Division, the company is commercializing the genes and proteins it has discovered.

The company has partnered the LEADS technology with a number of companies including Parke-Davis, a division of Warner-Lambert Co.; Framingham, Mass.-based Genzyme Molecular Oncology; and Human Genome Sciences Inc., of Rockville, Md. (See BioWorld Today, March 3, 2000, p.1.)

In addition, Compugen launched LabOnWeb.com, one of the Internet's first research engines for life scientists, in December. Compugen provides its genomics and proteomics products to individual life scientists through this site.

The company said Wednesday it had raised in aggregate $35.4 million in a private placement with a number of institutional investors. The investment was co-led by Apax Partners & Co., a worldwide investment company, and Pequot Private Equity Group, the direct private equity investment arm of Pequot Capital Management Inc., headquartered in Westport, Conn.

New investors in the company included venture capital funds from the Giza Group, Yozma Venture Fund and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. Existing investors who took part in the offering include the company's major shareholder, Clal Biotechnology Industries Ltd., and Apax Partners Israel, Poalim Investments Ltd., STI Venture Fund Ltd., and Ampal Industries (Israel) Ltd.