Less than four months after conducting an initial public offering, CoTherix Inc. returned to the market for a follow-on offering raising $35.6 million.

The company is offering 4 million shares at $8.90 per share.

CoTherix officials declined to comment on Thursday due to an SEC-imposed quiet period, but according to the company's prospectus, it will use some of the $32.8 million in net proceeds to establish its sales and marketing organization for the commercial launch of its first and only product, Ventavis.

About $9 million of the funds will be paid to Schering AG, of Berlin, the company from which CoTherix licensed Ventavis. The milestone payment is due in August as a result of the recent approval of the product.

Additional proceeds will be used to further develop Ventavis in combination with other therapies and in new indications, or to license or acquire products to build a pipeline for CoTherix.

The company's existing cash, as well as proceeds from the October IPO and Thursday's follow-on, give CoTherix enough money to carry it through the next 18 months. As of Dec. 31, CoTherix reported $43.3 million in cash and cash equivalents, including $25.2 million in net proceeds from the IPO.

The FDA approved Ventavis early this year for pulmonary arterial hypertension, and CoTherix intends to launch it early in the second quarter with a sales force of 20 people who will call on 1,500 physicians. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 4, 2005.)

The product was in-licensed in September 2003 from Schering, which markets it in several European countries and Australia. CoTherix filed the new drug application in June. Analysts have estimated that Ventavis sales could peak at $250 million in 2010.

CoTherix could bring in another $5.3 million if the underwriters exercise an overallotment option for 600,000 additional shares. New York-based CIBC World Markets Corp. and Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray & Co. are acting as joint book-running managers, while New York-based Needham & Co. Inc. and San Francisco-based Thomas Weisel Partners LLC are acting as co-managers.

CoTherix raised $30 million gross in its IPO through the sale of 5 million shares at $6 each. (See BioWorld Today, Oct. 18, 2004.)

The company's stock since has risen to as high as $12.02, in late December. On Thursday, it (NASDAQ:CTRX) dropped 17 cents to close at $8.81. CoTherix now has about 23.6 million shares outstanding.

Other financing news:

• Acacia Research Corp., of Newport Beach, Calif., obtained commitments from a select group of institutional investors to purchase $19.6 million of Acacia Technologies' common stock.

The company is selling 3.5 million shares at $5.60 apiece to investors that include funds and accounts affiliated with Apex Capital LLC.

Acacia comprises two operating groups, Acacia Technologies and CombiMatrix. Acacia Technologies focuses on everything from interactive television to data file synchronization, while the CombiMatrix group produces biochips used in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and proteins.

• AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Secaucus, N.J., reduced the price range for its proposed initial public offering from $10 to $12 a share to $7 to $8 a share. If 6.8 million shares are offered at the mid-point of the price range, the company would raise $51 million in gross proceeds. The company filed for the IPO in November, hoping to raise $75 million. Underwriters include Credit Suisse First Boston, Citigroup, Piper Jaffray & Co. and Lazard. They have an overallotment option for about 1 million shares. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 30, 2004.)

• Barrier Therapeutics Inc., of Princeton, N.J., priced its follow-on public offering of 4 million shares of its common stock at $19.50 a share. Of the 4 million shares, 2 million are being offered by the existing stockholders of the company and 2 million shares are being offered by the company. Barrier will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares offered by existing stockholders. Barrier granted its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 600,000 shares to cover overallotments.

• DOR BioPharma Inc., of Miami, closed a $3.77 million private financing in which investors received 8.4 million shares of common stock at 45 cents per share, as well as warrants to purchase 6.3 million shares at 50.5 cents each. The warrants will be exercisable for five years beginning in August. Upon their exercise for cash, DOR would receive additional gross proceeds of about $3.2 million. DOR is focused on the development of biodefense vaccines against ricin toxin and botulinum toxin, as well as its Phase III product orBec to treat intestinal graft-vs.-host disease.

• Telik Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., said the underwriters of its public offering conducted in January have exercised in full their overallotment option for an additional 1.1 million shares, which were sold at $18.75 each. In total, the company sold about 8.1 million shares to raise $151 million in gross proceeds. UBS Investment Bank, JPMorgan Securities Inc. and Lehman Brothers served as underwriters. Net proceeds are expected to fund clinical trials of Telcyta, a cell-activated chemotherapeutic, and Telintra, a small molecule designed to treat myelodysplastic syndrome. Funds also will be used for research and development and general corporate purposes. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 31, 2005.)

• Tercica Inc., of South San Francisco, said its underwriters have exercised in full their overallotment option for 900,000 shares of common stock, bringing gross proceeds for the follow-on offering to $55.2 million. Tercica issued a total of 6.9 million shares at $8 per share, to raise money to launch Increlex, its recombinant human insulin-like growth factor-1, for children with short stature. The underwriters included Lehman Brothers; SG Cowen; Robert W. Baird & Co.; Friedman, Billings, Ramsey; and Harris Nesbitt. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 9, 2005.)