Money continues to flow into the industry at a brisk clip, with the total amount raised thus far in 2004 easily outpacing what the industry raised in all of 2003.

Last year, biotechnology raised about $16.5 billion overall, through public financings, private placements, warrants, loans, bridge financings, debt offerings and the like, according to BioWorld's figures. This year, the sector has raised $19.6 billion so far, and there's still time to pump up that amount.

Serologicals Corp. is doing its part, having priced an offering of about 5.6 million shares at $22.80 each for gross proceeds of $126.8 million. However, the offering is a combination of primary and secondary shares, with selling stockholders participating. Serological expects to net about $91.4 million and the selling stockholders expect to pull in about $29.7 million.

That doesn't include the overallotment option of 630,000 shares. If exercised in full, the option would "take it to about $140 million [in total], so we'll probably end up adding another more than $10 million to what we get," said David Dodd, Serologicals' president and CEO.

The company's stock (NASDAQ:SERO) Thursday fell 20 cents to close at $22.82.

Serologicals, based in Atlanta, undertook the fund raising for "two broad reasons," Dodd told BioWorld Today.

"First, we had an $80 million term debt from [the Upstate acquisition]," he said, "and we'll add [human] resources, as well."

In the fall, Serologicals bought Upstate Group Inc., a service company for the life sciences, for about $205 million. The acquisition closed in October, and Serologicals ended up financing the move through $102.5 million in cash and about 4.3 million shares. The financing allows Serologicals to pay down what it owes for the acquisition. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 9, 2004.)

Upstate, of Charlottesville, Va., brought to Serologicals cell-signaling research reagents and preclinical drug screening and target-validation technologies, with a focus on kinase screening and protein interaction. Upstate now functions as a unit, but purchasing it was part of a larger plan at Serologicals to diversify and grow by acquisition.

That plan becomes clearer looking backward. Late in 2001, the company completed the acquisition of Purchase, N.Y.-based Intergen Co. - a company that supported the development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals - for about $45 million in cash. In April 2003, Serologicals completed its purchase of Chemicon International Inc., of Temecula, Calif., for about $95 million in cash. Chemicon supplied a variety of reagents, antibodies and molecular research tools to the life sciences community. In July, the company closed its purchase of AltaGen Biosciences Inc., of Morgan Hill, Calif., giving Serologicals contract research and development services for the cell culture industry.

Then came the Upstate purchase. Last month, the firm formed Celliance, a division designed to expand its presence in the bioprocessing market. Throw in the company's divestiture of its therapeutic plasma business in January, and Serologicals has had a serious facelift.

"That gives us three operating divisions," Dodd said. "Chemicon and the Upstate division, which is for research in the marketplace and drug discovery, and Celliance, which is for bioproduction-type customers" and meets such needs as the production of monoclonal antibodies.

So far, the acquisitions are paying off. In the third quarter, Serologicals had net revenues of $46.3 million, up 10 percent over the third quarter of 2003. Net income for the quarter was $5.7 million, compared to a net loss of $6.5 million the year before. Net income from continuing operations was $5.7 million, an increase of 312 percent to the third quarter of 2003.

Diluted earnings per share were 19 cents in the third quarter, up from 6 cents in the prior-year quarter. The increases over the prior year primarily were due to sales growth in the cell culture business and a reduction of operating expenses as a percentage of revenues, Serologicals said.

The Upstate division is expected to bring in about $60 million in revenues this year, with an organic growth of about 30 percent. Chemicon is expected to bring in slightly higher revenues in 2004, with organic growth of 20 percent. The Celliance unit is expected to provide $110 million in revenue, which should grow to $125 million in 2005, Dodd said.

With figures like that, it's stay-the-course for Serologicals.

"What's core here is, we're growing at a rate of two or three times our markets and our competitors," Dodd said. "Our goal is to continue to grow at a multiple of the market and our competition and continue to drive value."

Cortex Raises $11.3M For Ampakines

Also raising money was Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc., which entered a definitive agreement for a private placement of about 4.2 million shares at $2.66 per share, raising about $11.3 million. The agreement includes five-year warrants to investors for another 2.1 million shares at $3 per share.

Thursday Cortex's stock (AMEX:COR) lost 3 cents to close at $2.68.

The funding gives the company "for the first time in its history" the financial resources that will allow it to develop its CX717 compound and a follow-up product, said Roger Stoll, its chairman and CEO.

In February, the company reported that its product CX516 for mild cognitive impairment failed to meet the primary endpoint in a Phase IIb trial, although a subset of patients with the worst memory trouble showed improvement over placebo. The news dropped Cortex's stock 65 cents, or 17.1 percent, to close at $3.15 the day the news was made public. But while that ampakine drug didn't perform to the company's hopes, the CX717 ampakine product has shown potential in Phase I work and Cortex hopes to initiate several pilot Phase IIa studies in selected indications in early 2005. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 18, 2004.)

Ampakine drugs target the AMPA receptor, which is involved in long-term potentiation, thought to underlie the encoding of many types of memory. The AMPA receptor also plays a role in excitatory communication in the brain.

Cortex, of Irvine, Calif., had $11.4 million in cash and cash equivalents as of Sept. 30, and marketable securities of $8.7 million. For that quarter, it posted a net loss of $1.5 million, or 5 cents per share.

Rodman & Renshaw LLC in New York served as the placement agent for the financing.