A year after filing for an initial public offering, Bioheart Inc. closed the deal by pricing 1.1 million shares at $5.25 each.

Gross proceeds of $5.8 million are a far cry from the $35 million the Sunrise, Fla.-based company initially had hoped for. And last fall, Bioheart raised its target to $53.6 million when it set terms at 3.575 million shares priced between $14 and $16 per share. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 15, 2007.)

Although the actual deal fell short of those expectations, Bioheart still earned the honor of becoming the first biotech to test the IPO waters this year. Unfavorable market conditions have prompted three biotechs - Biolex Therapeutics, Archemix Corp. and Light Sciences Oncology Inc. - to pull IPOs so far this month. Yet others refuse to be deterred. According to BioWorld Snapshots, 15 biotechs are still in the IPO queue, including January additions Phenomix Corp., Omeros Corp. and Bayhill Therapeutics Inc.

Shares of Bioheart (NASDAQ:BHRT) closed at $4.95 on Wednesday, down 5 cents.

As of Sept. 30, the company reported $9.5 million in cash and equivalents after posting a loss of $9.2 million during the first nine months of 2007. After expenses, net proceeds from the IPO would be just $1.5 million, but expense prepayments will allow Bioheart to take home $4.6 million in cash proceeds. That take-home total could increase to $5.4 million if underwriter Dawson James Securities Inc. exercises its option to purchase an additional 165,000 shares to cover any overallotments.

Most of the money from the offering will support a Phase II/III trial of MyoCell, Bioheart's autologous cell-based treatment for heart failure. The product is intended to repair and regenerate heart muscle by taking myoblasts from a patient's thigh muscle, growing them in a cell-culturing process, and injecting them into scar tissue within the heart wall using the company's MyoCath catheter.

Data from the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 330-patient trial are expected in the third quarter of 2009. Primary endpoints include improvement in six-minute walk distance and quality of life, as well as safety. If the findings are positive, Bioheart intends to ask the FDA to consider the trial pivotal and a basis for approval.

The company plans to pursue limited approval in Europe as early as the second quarter of 2008 based on Phase II data. Due to a limited number of patients treated, the Phase II trial initially did not show statistical significance for any of the efficacy endpoints.

Additional proceeds from the IPO will be used for license payments, repayment of principal and accrued interest on debt, working capital and other general corporate purposes. Behind MyoCell, Bioheart has earlier-stage autologous cell therapy programs for acute heart attack and abnormal heart rhythm as well as an adipose tissue processing system, endoventricular catheters and an allogenic myoblast program.

In other financing news:

• Affimed Therapeutics AG, of Heidelberg, Germany, closed a €5 million (US$7.3 million) second tranche of its Series B financing. Last spring, the company raised €25 million in the first tranche of the round to fund its TandAb tetravalent antibody programs in Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The second tranche of funding was provided by Novo Nordisk Biotech Fund. Affimed also added Thomas Hecht, Joerg Neermann and Richard Stead to its board of directors. (See BioWorld Today, April 5, 2007.)

• OccuLogix Inc., of Toronto, secured a $3 million bridge loan to support its ophthalmic device and diagnostic business while it continues to evaluate strategic options such as obtaining additional capital, forging alliances or selling all or part of the company. The loan bears interest at a rate of 12 percent annually and has a 180-day term that can be extended to 270 days.

• OxiGene Inc., of Waltham, Mass., secured a three-year, $40 million Committed Equity Financing Facility (CEFF) through Kingsbridge Capital Ltd. OxiGene can access the financing in exchange for providing newly issued common shares to Kingsbridge at discounts ranging from 5 percent to 12 percent. In connection with the CEFF, OxiGene issued a warrant to Kingsbridge to purchase up to 250,000 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $2.74 per share, a premium to the company's Tuesday closing price of $2.13. The CEFF will provide OxiGene with financing flexibility as it advances lead vascular disrupting agent Zybrestat (combretastatin-A4 phosphate) through oncology and ophthalmic clinical trials.

• Population Genetics Technologies Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, raised £3.8 million (US$7.4 million) in a Series A financing. Investors included Auriga Partners, Noble Fund Managers and Compass Genetics Investors LLC. Proceeds will be used to advance methods for studying population genetics without separately sequencing every individual genome in the population, a concept proposed by Sydney Brenner, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002. The company also appointed Mel Kronick, formerly of Agilent Technologies Inc. and Applied Biosystems, as CEO.

• Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., completed its previously announced public offerings of 6.9 million shares of common stock priced at $17.14 per share and $287.5 million worth of 4.75 percent convertible senior subordinated notes due 2013. Underwriters included Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc.; Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc.; Goldman Sachs & Co.; and J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. Gross proceeds of $405.8 million will be used for Phase III studies of hepatitis C drug telaprevir. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 14, 2008.)