Dragon Pharmaceuticals Inc. reported Tuesday that it will proceed with a private placement of up to 4 million units at $2 per unit, with total gross proceeds of up to $8 million. Each unit consists of one common share of Dragon and one warrant to purchase an additional half-share at $2 for a period of two years.
The company said proceeds of the financing will be used to provide working capital and to expand production capacity of Dragon's erythropoietin (EPO) manufacturing facility in Nanjing, China. Dragon said the added capacity will be required to meet anticipated product orders resulting from registrations of its EPO product in several international territories.
Proceeds also will be used to fund development of the company's follow-on products, including TPO, G-CSF and insulin.
In other financing news:
Medicure Inc., of Winnipeg, Manitoba, closed its private placement of 2.6 million units at C$1 each for total proceeds of C$2.6 million (US$1.7 million). Each unit consists of one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant. Each whole common share purchase warrant entitles the holder to acquire one common share for C$1.15 at any time prior to Aug. 31, 2002. The placement was led by Crocus Investment Fund and participated in by the Manitoba Science and Technology Fund and Renaissance Capital Manitoba Ventures Fund Ltd. Partnership, all of Manitoba. The proceeds will be used to complete the currently planned Phase II trials of MC-1, being developed for reduction of injury due to heart attacks.
Synsorb Biotech Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, entered into an equity line agreement with Roseworth Group LLC, of the British Virgin Islands, under which Synsorb may sell up to 1 million shares of Oncolytics Biotech Inc., also of Calgary, to Roseworth over a 12-month period. Roseworth invests in publicly traded equities for its own account. Synsorb is a pharmaceutical company that develops carbohydrate-based therapies. Oncolytics is a biotechnology company that develops the mammalian retrovirus called Reolysin, a potential cancer therapeutic.
ImClone Systems Inc., of New York, disclosed the early achievement of a clinical development milestone under its agreement with Merck KgaA, of Darmstadt, Germany. The $5 million equity-based milestone payment is related to the presentation of data from ImClone's Phase II study of IMC-C225 in combination with irinotecan in patients with irinotecan-refractory colorectal cancer.
ConjuChem Inc., of Montreal, filed a preliminary prospectus with the securities commissions of each Canadian province relating to a proposed offering of common shares consisting of both a treasury and secondary component coming from four early stage institutional investors. The lead underwriter of the offering is Yorkton Securities. Other members of the underwriting syndicate are BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. and HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc. Terms of the proposed offering were not disclosed.