• Acelrx Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., said it closed its public offering of about 4.4 million shares of common stock, including 570,000 shares issued to cover overallotments, at a price of $11.65 per share. Gross proceeds totaled about $50.9 million, and net proceeds of about $47.9 million are expected to fund regulatory approval of Zalviso in the U.S. and Europe, preparation for the commercial launch in the U.S. and for working capital and general corporate purposes. Jefferies LLC and Piper Jaffray & Co. acted as joint book-running managers, while Guggenheim Securities acted as co-manager for the offering.

• Oncomed Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., said it closed its initial public offering of about 5.5 million shares of common stock priced at $17 apiece, including the exercise in full by underwriters to purchase an additional 720,000 shares in overallotments. Funds will be used for clinical and R&D work, including advancing lead internal program, cancer stem cell-targeting demcizumab (OMP-21M18), through Phase II trials. Shares of Oncomed (NASDAQ:OMED), which jumped 60 percent on debut, closed Tuesday at $26.74. (See BioWorld Today, July 11, 2013.)

• Regulus Therapeutics Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., completed an underwritten public offering of about 5.2 million shares of common stock, including 675,000 shares sold in conjunction with the full exercise of an overallotment option, at $9.50 per share for gross proceeds of approximately $49.2 million. The financing is designed to advance the company's pipeline of drugs targeting microRNAs, including lead compound RG-101 for hepatitis C virus. Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Cowen and Co. LLC and BMO Capital Markets Corp. acted as joint book-running managers, with Needham & Co. LLC and Wedbush PacGrow Life Sciences acting as co-managers. On Tuesday, the company's shares (NASDAQ:RGLS) gained 9 cents, closing at $10.12. (See BioWorld Today, July 18, 2013.)

• Verastem Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., closed a $63.8 million underwritten public offering of about 4.3 million shares of common stock, including 555,000 shares issued in conjunction with the exercise of an overallotment option, at $15 per share for net proceeds of approximately $59.8 million. The company said the financing will support preclinical and clinical development and other business activities. Jefferies LLC and Leerink Swann LLC acted as joint book-running managers, and JMP Securities LLC, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Guggenheim Securities, Roth Capital Partners LLC and Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. acted as co-managers. On Tuesday, the company's shares (NASDAQ:VSTM) fell 6 cents, closing at $15.91.