By Kim Coghill

Washington Editor

Palatin Technologies Inc. raised $11 million through the private sale of 4.9 million shares.

For every four shares purchased, investors also received a five-year warrant to purchase one share of common stock at a 20 percent premium to the offering price.

Carl Spana, president and CEO of Princeton, N.J.-based Palatin, told BioWorld Today that raising $11 million in any economy is quite a feat for a small biotechnology company.

¿It¿s never easy to raise money when you¿re a small biotech,¿ Spana said. ¿This is a tough environment so we are pretty happy to have gotten the $11 million. It is a significant influx of cash and with it came some good institutional investors.¿

They are Credit Suisse Equity Fund Global Biotech, of Luxembourg; Bernische Lehrerversicherungskasse, of Bern, Switzerland; Cantrade Invest Biotech Fund, of Zurich, Switzerland; Anglo Irish Bank, of Zurich; Sectoral Asset Management Fund, of Montreal; OrbiMed Advisors LLC, of New York; Perceptive Life Sciences Fund, of New York; and the Clearwater Fund, of Clearwater, Fla.

Following the offering, Palatin has $19 million in cash with a burn rate of about $900,000 to $1 million per month. The company has 16.1 million common shares outstanding following the offering.

Spana said the proceeds are earmarked for general corporate purposes to include ongoing development of PT-141, a nasally administered peptide for erectile dysfunction expected to enter Phase II trials later this year, and LeuTech, a monoclonal antibody for imaging infections. The company also is developing additional therapeutics using its enabling peptide platform technology, MIDAS.

Palatin last week said it has teamed up with Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to study the clinical utility of LeuTech in the early stage detection of inhalation anthrax.

The price of the stock sold was about $2.24 per share. Palatin¿s stock (AMEX:PTN) closed Monday at $4.15, up 40 cents, or 10.7 percent.