By Karen Pihl-Carey

Staff Writer

Inspire Pharmaceuticals Inc. completed a $12.4 million private placement of preferred stock, giving the company funds to advance five clinical programs.

"This brings us to $32.5 million raised through venture capital financing since the company's inception, and I think that [demonstrates] confidence in the programs the company is bringing forward," said Gregory Mossinghoff, vice president of corporate development at Inspire. "This is our third major venture round and, hopefully, it's our last private round if all goes well."

The Durham, N.C.-based company expects to go public in 2001 and hopes to see revenues later that year or early in 2002, Mossinghoff told BioWorld Today.

The $12.4 million financing was led by New Medical Technologies, of Basel, Switzerland, and InterWest Partners, of Menlo Park, Calif., and included most of Inspire's existing investors, as well as some new ones. Pacific Growth Equities, of San Francisco, acted as placement agent for the offering.

Inspire has a focus on the discovery and development of therapeutics based on mucosal hydration and epithelial cell biology. Its products target members of the P2Y receptor family.

"We have a product that will advance to Phase III next year and some advancing to Phase II as well," said Christy Shaffer, president and CEO of Inspire. "We intend to file at least one, if not two, new INDs [investigational new drug applications] for new target areas next year. So this money will help us move those products along very rapidly."

The company expects to have five programs in the clinic in 2000.

INS316, a nebulized acute-use agent designed for the production of deep-lung sputum samples that may enhance the diagnosis of lung cancer, is expected to enter Phase III trials in the first half of 2000. It would be the first inhaled P2Y2 receptor agonist to reach that stage of development, Shaffer said. INS365, the company's second inhaled product, is in two cystic fibrosis studies, a Phase II for dry eye disease and a Phase I/II for chronic lung disease.

Inspire is partnered with Kissei Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Matsumoto City, Japan, for INS365 for cystic fibrosis and chronic lung disease. It is partnered with Santen Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, for INS365 for dry eye disease.

"Kissei and Santen plan to file their INDs at the end of this year or in 2000," Shaffer said. "We anticipate receiving milestone payments for both in the near term for Phase I trials in Japan."

Inspire expects to file an IND in 2000 for INS37217, a P2Y2 receptor agonist, for acute and chronic recurrent sinusitis and other indications, Shaffer said.

Mossinghoff said the company is talking with a number of potential partners in the U.S. and Europe for Inspire's advanced programs.

Inspire entered into its first corporate partnership in September 1998 with Kissei. The $17.5 million deal gave Kissei rights to market the product in Japan. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 15, 1998, p. 1.)

Inspire's $6.25 million partnership with Santen gave the Japanese company exclusive rights to develop and market INS365 for dry eye disease in Japan and nine other Asian countries. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 4, 1999, p. 1.)