By Brady Huggett

Esperion Therapeutics Inc. agreed to sell about $24 million worth of stock privately, solidifying its cash position that much more as it prepares for further trials of its drug candidates and corporate decisions.

It entered definitive purchase agreements to sell about 3.2 million shares of newly issued common stock to both new and existing shareholders. Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Esperion will see about $22.5 million of that total. Robertson Stephens Inc., of San Francisco, acted as placement agent and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, of Minneapolis, served as financial adviser.

Timothy Mayleben, vice president, finance and chief financial officer of Esperion, said the funds would be used for the advancement of research and development, but also for general administration and corporate purposes. Roger Newton, Esperion¿s CEO and president, elaborated.

¿We¿ll be adding some additional head count and building more of our infrastructure,¿ he told BioWorld Today. ¿We¿ll be hiring at the senior level ¿ people in higher positions in the area of regulatory business development and additional clinical staff.¿

The approximate $7.50 selling price of the shares comes in below Esperion¿s initial public offering price of $9. The company raised $54 million in its IPO last August. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 11, 2000.)

Its stock (NASDAQ:ESPR) fell 52 cents Thursday to close at $8.

Esperion discovers and develops pharmaceutical products for the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases using its treatment approach called HDL Therapy. High-density lipoproteins are the primary facilitators of the reverse lipid transport pathway, the process by which excess cholesterol and other lipids are removed from the arteries and tissues. Esperion has four biopharmaceutical candidates and one small-molecule candidate working their way through development, the one furthest along being the ETC 588 large unilamellar vesicles (LUV) program.

A Phase IIa trial for the LUV program has completed enrollment of individuals with atherosclerosis and low HDL-C. A look at the data from that trial will provide more insight into the next step, CEO Newton said.

¿The results will come in the fourth quarter,¿ he said. ¿We¿ll have to see what the results tell us and what the FDA requires us to do, whether we need to do a Phase IIb study or move into a more-pivotal study designed to get a clear proof of efficacy.¿

The news of the fund raising became public on the same day Esperion released its second-quarter earnings. It reported a net loss of $6.3 million for the quarter, or about 24 cents per share, compared to the $6.5 million loss it saw in the second quarter of 2000. It spent about $5.4 million in research and development in the quarter, compared to $5.9 million in 2000¿s second quarter.

Esperion had about 26 million shares outstanding before the offering, and Mayleben said the company should burn through roughly $28 million to $30 million this year, with a slight ramping up as the year draws to a close.

As of June 30, it had about $60 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Add the approximate $22.5 million, and Esperion is sitting pretty, Mayleben said.

¿We have almost $85 million,¿ he said. ¿We clearly think we have a couple of years of cash under out belt and it puts us in a good position to get into our clinical trials.¿

Things have progressed along the lines laid out for Esperion some time ago, Newton said.

¿It has been our plan to get our compounds into Phase IIa,¿ he said. ¿We wanted to be able to do that and then make a decision about doing something with a partner or go on alone. We haven¿t strayed from that strategy.¿

The money raised in a market that Mayleben called ¿tough sledding¿ should help Esperion reach its goals of continuing ¿to hit the milestones we¿ve laid out for ourselves and to continue to improve HDL therapy.¿