Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced that it has raised$5.1 million in a private placement of convertible preferredstock.

In addition to previous investors Tudor Investment Corp. andprivate investors from Goldman, Sachs & Co., new investorsinclude Weiss, Peck & Greer Institutional Life Sciences FundL.P. and New York State Science and Technology Foundation.

This is the first equity financing for the privately heldcompany since May 1991, when it placed $3.1 million inconvertible preferred stock with institutional funds andindividuals from Tudor and Goldman, Sachs.

The remainder of the funds Progenics has raised since its 1988inception have come from the National Institutes of Health(NIH) in the form of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)grants, said Joel Sendek, manager of corporate developmentand investor relations.

Those grants have supported the company's research ondeveloping therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics for AIDS. Thelatest SBIR grant, which Progenics received in April, providesthe company with $500,000 to study how HIV enters immunecells.

Progenics also received an SBIR grant in 1990 to studyscreening of molecules to prevent the binding of HIV to T cells,and another grant in 1992 to work on AIDS vaccinedevelopment.

The company is currently working on four products: ProScan-A,a diagnostic imaging agent for HIV infection; Pro 367, an HIVtherapeutic; Pro 542, an HIV prophylactic; and ProVax, asubunit AIDS vaccine.

-- Jennifer Van Brunt Senior Editor

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