By Matthew Willett

Staff Writer

Gemini Genomics plc, of Cambridge, UK, priced its initial public offering at $14 per each of 6 million American depository shares (ADS), raising $84 million. Each ADS represents two ordinary shares.

By market close Wednesday, the stock (NASDAQ:GMNI) had jumped about 43 percent to close at $19.625.

The company said in June it planned to raise between $72 million and $84 million through the IPO, intended to fund operations for the next 12 months, in addition to building efforts focused on the company's headquarters in Boston. (See BioWorld Today, June 26, 2000, p. 1.) Gemini has 62.9 million shares outstanding.

The clinical genomics company granted underwriters an option to purchase up to 900,000 shares to cover overallotments. SG Cowen Securities Corp. acted as lead manager for the offering and Chase H&Q was co-manager.

Founded in 1995, Gemini Genomics seeks out relationships between human genes and human health and disease, licensing the resulting information to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies involved in drug discovery or gene-based diagnostic applications. It collects clinical information from sources such as twins, patients and founder-type populations.

The company is engaged in a research collaboration with Kyowa Hakka Kogyo Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, for age-related diseases, and one with CuraGen Corp., of New Haven, Conn., to combine single nucleotide polymorphisms and clinical data to validate drug targets.

Gemini also collaborates with Sequenom Inc., of San Diego, to find medical relevance in human genetic variations released in the public domain.

Gemini holds U.S. Patent No. 8,857,464, covering described variations in the interleukin-6 gene as it relates to osteoporotic fracture.