By Randall Osborne

West Coast Editor

With its Intercept Blood Systems in Phase III trials, Cerus Corp. raised $78 million though a placement of 1 million new shares at $52 each with an institutional investor and the sale of 500,000 more at the same price to the pension fund of its partner, Baxter Healthcare Corp.

Stephen Isaacs, president and CEO of Concord, Calif.-based Cerus, said the company has ¿north of $150 million,¿ enough to operate through early 2004.

¿A lot of the funding is to complete the current Phase IIIs, but we¿re looking to see how we can reshuffle the deck,¿ Isaacs told BioWorld Today. ¿We view therapeutics as where we want to go in the future.¿

Isaacs said the company is ¿interested in what [else] we can do with Helinx technology,¿ which targets and locks DNA or RNA and is intended to prevent replication of viruses, bacteria and other pathogens.

Among other things, ¿we¿re looking to manufacture a cellular vaccine for Epstein-Barr virus,¿ he said. ¿It would be an autologous approach.¿

There¿s also the research deal taking aim at hematologic malignancies, signed earlier this year with the pharmaceutical division of Tokyo-based Kirin Brewery Company Ltd. The collaboration is intended to jointly develop stem cell transplantation products, with $1 million up front and as much as $11 million in milestone payments for Cerus. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 25, 2001.)

For Cerus, the Intercept Blood Systems, designed to inactivate viruses, bacteria, other pathogens and white blood cells in donated blood components intended for transfusion, are ¿really the foundation of our business,¿ Isaacs said.

The Intercept Platelet System is well on its way. Phase III trials in Europe are finished, and the company has filed for a CE Mark so it can sell the system there.

¿We hope to see [action on the filing] by the first quarter of next year,¿ Isaacs said. In the U.S., Cerus aims to win regulatory approval by the end of next year. The Phase III trial is complete, Isaacs said.

¿We¿re scrubbing the data from various sites, and we¿ll be unlocking the database in July,¿ he said. The Intercept Plasma System also is in Phase III trials, and Cerus is gearing up, with Deerfield, Ill.-based Baxter for Phase III trials of the Intercept Red Blood Cell System.

¿All of it is moving along,¿ Isaacs said.

In the financing, the 500,000 shares were sold to Baxter International Inc. and Subsidiaries Pension Trust, which is Baxter¿s pension fund.

¿We¿re pleased Baxter stepped up to the plate, and we like [the pension fund] because it¿s really a more conservative organization, and shows a lot of support,¿ Isaacs said. Before the placement, Baxter, Cerus¿ largest shareholder, owned 14.7 percent of Cerus, and it now owns 16.5 percent. Placement agent for the sale to the institutional investor was Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, of New York.

Cerus¿ stock (NASDAQ:CERS) closed Thursday at $59, up 58 cents.