• Aeterna Zentaris Inc., of Quebec City, has received commitments from institutional investors to purchase $12.1 million of securities in a registered direct offering. The company will sell approximately 8.8 million common shares at $1.3725 per share and issue warrants to acquire approximately 4.4 million shares at an exercise price of $1.3725 per share. Rodman & Renshaw, LLC acted as the exclusive placement agent. The proceeds are being used primarily in connection with perifosine, Aeterna Zentaris' lead oncology compound.

• Akebia Therapeutics Inc., of Cincinnati, successfully completed a Phase Ib study for AKB-6548 in healthy volunteers, and announced completion of the second tranche of the Series A $16 million financing round announced in July 2009. The tranche was increased from $4 million to $5 million, increasing the total round size from $16 million to $17 million. Together with earlier rounds of financing, the total raised in the Series A is $28 million. Novartis Bioventures Ltd., Venture Investors LLC, Triathlon Medical Ventures, Kearny Venture Partners, Athenian Venture Partners and Sigvion Capital all contributed to the second tranche. AKB-6548 is an orally bioavailable hypoxia-inducible factor-prolyl hydroxylase inhibitor designed to increase the natural production of erythropoietin in anemic patients. In the study, healthy volunteers were orally dosed once daily with AKB-6548 for 10 days and AKB-6548 increased EPO and reticulocytes and was found to be safe and well tolerated.

• GTC Biotherapeutics Inc., of Framingham, Mass., closed a new $7 million secured convertible debt financing by LFB Biotechnologies SAS in connection with a restructuring of GTC's operations. The restructuring will result in a downsizing of approximately 30 full-time positions at its headquarters and an additional 20 positions at its farm facility. In addition, Geoffrey Cox and several other members of the current senior management team will be leaving GTC. Board member William Heiden has been named chairman, CEO and president. The convertible debt will mature on June 15, 2013, and will bear interest at an annual rate of 4 percent, with a single payment of principal and interest at maturity. The company said it will concentrate on three goals: to progress the Factor VIIa program into first-in-man studies, currently expected to begin late this year; to improve the financial performance of ATryn; and to leverage its transgenic platform to advance additional protein therapeutic candidates, especially in the area of biosimilar product candidates.

• Pharmacyclics Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., entered stock purchase agreements with institutional investors for the sale of approximately 6.15 million shares of common stock in a registered direct offering at $6.51 per share, the closing price June 15. Gross proceeds are expected to be approximately $40 million. Pharmacyclics said it intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including clinical trials, preclinical research expenses, general and administrative expenses and for working capital. Shares of Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ:PCYC) rose 55 cents, or 8.5 percent, to close at $7.06.

• Predictive Biosciences, of Lexington, Mass., completed a $25 million Series C round. New investor ProQuest Investments led the round, joined by all current investors: Flybridge Capital Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Kaiser Permanente Ventures and New Enterprise Associates. In conjunction with ProQuest's investment, general partner Jay Moorin joins Predictive Biosciences' board. Predictive develops molecular diagnostic cancer assays and is a urology-focused provider of anatomic pathology laboratory products and services.

• Soligenix Inc., of Princeton, N.J., entered common stock purchase agreements with existing and new investors totaling approximately $5.16 million. Soligenix's North American commercial partner, Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., participated. Soligenix will issue approximately 25,178,180 shares of common stock and warrants to purchase up to approximately 15,106,910 shares. National Securities Corp. and Griffin Securities, Inc. served as co-placement agents on the financing.