Two days after changing its name from Structural GenomiX Inc., SGX Pharmaceuticals Inc. filed on Friday to raise $80.5 million in an initial public offering.

The San Diego-based company, which has not yet specified the number of shares it plans to offer or the expected price range, intends to list the stock on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol "SGXP."

The company's prospectus said it will use proceeds to fund research and development activities, including completing the pivotal trial of Troxatyl. Remaining funds will go toward working capital and general corporate purposes, and cover acquisitions and in-licensing activities. SGX expects proceeds, along with existing resources, to support the company through at least mid-2007. It reported $10.4 million in cash and cash equivalents as of June 30.

SGX focuses on cancer therapies, including lead compound Troxatyl, which is in a pivotal Phase II/III trial for the third-line treatment of acute myelogenous leukemia - a disease for which there is no approved therapy. The company anticipates submitting a new drug application in late 2006 or early 2007, leading to a product launch later that year. SGX also is developing Troxatyl for the treatment of various solid tumors, and it plans to develop the drug in combination with the generic compound cytarabine for the second-line treatment of AML, and for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes.

Troxatyl, a novel analogue of cytidine, appears to be most active when administered by continuous intravenous infusion compared to intravenous injection. SGX licensed worldwide rights to the compound in July 2004 from Laval, Quebec-based Shire BioChem Inc. (See BioWorld Today, July 30, 2004.)

Aside from working on Troxatyl, SGX generates lead oncology compounds using its fragment-based drug discovery platform, Fragments of Active Structures, or FAST. It expects to begin clinical development in 2006 of its first lead FAST-discovered compound, an inhibitor of the enzyme BCR-ABL. The compound is designed to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia that is resistant to treatment with the current standard of care.

At the lead optimization stage, SGX is focused on targets MET and RON, receptor tyrosine kinases that are implicated in a range of solid tumors. The company's FAST and related technologies generated revenues of about $55.2 million in 2003, 2004 and the first six months of 2005 from collaborations, commercial agreements and grants.

The company has a strategy to get Troxatyl to the market, and to develop its own sales and marketing capabilities. SGX also wants to expand its portfolio through acquisitions and in-licensing.

Incorporated in July 1998, SGX has raised $84.5 million in three rounds: $7.5 million in its Series A, $32 million in its Series B, and $45 million in its Series C. (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 19, 1999; April 5, 2000; and Sept. 20, 2000.)

More recently, SGX secured a $15 million, three-year agreement this summer with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics Inc. to discover compounds that can correct the delta F508 form of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator protein. That news came less than a week after SGX received a $48.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to discover the 3-dimensional structures of proteins. (See BioWorld Today, July 7, 2005.)