By Brady Huggett

Samaritan Pharmaceuticals, restructuring a financing through Fusion Capital Fund II LLC, gained access to $20 million and will use the funds to grease the clinical trial tunnel for its HIV product, Anticort.

Anticort is an anticortisol, steroidogenesis inhibitor being developed to treat immune deficiency in HIV-positive patients, and also is being explored for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.

The original agreement was to provide $10 million in funding with an option for another $10 million, but the amended deal covers $20 million outright. The deal with Fusion Capital, of Chicago, allows Fusion to buy $400,000 worth of Samaritan stock per month, at whatever the stock price is at that time, until the $20 million is exhausted. Samaritan has the option to sell stock valued at less than that amount per month, or under certain circumstances, more. Based on the $400,000 amount, the funding would last for 50 months.

The original deal with Fusion was signed in November. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 14, 2000.)

"Isn't it great?" said Janet Greeson, CEO of Las Vegas-based Samaritan. "I've spent the last five years focused on raising money. It feels strange to me not to have to worry about it. We have enough money to go through Phase III and also to develop another product, which we intend to do, but the majority is for clinical trials."

The Phase Ib/IIa trials for Anticort at the AIDS Research Alliance in Los Angeles are expected to finish at the end of March or early April. Following completion, Samaritan will gather up the data and call on the FDA, waiting to hear if it should do another blinded study or go on to Phase III.

"The average response time is five-and-a-half months, but we have a tendency to think we might hear from them sooner," Greeson said. "The main ingredient in Anticort is Procaine, which has been approved for over 40 years and there has never been one mortality. This fits the bill for what the FDA calls 'new uses for old drugs.'

"We've had good results for HIV in preclinical tests in Brazil," she added. "And we don't know about the [Phase Ia/IIb] trial right now, but usually no news is good news."

Samaritan went public through a reverse merger in 1997. It formerly was Steroidogenesis Inhibitors International Inc., although the shareholders' meeting to accept the name change is scheduled for April 24. It focuses on the discovery and development of therapeutic drugs to treat high-cortisol diseases. It is growing, has eight employees and contracts out all of its science to Georgetown University. It trades on the OTC Bulletin Board, where its stock (OTCBB:SPHC) closed down 6 cents at 78 cents on Wednesday, although the deal with Fusion may make OTC a memory.

"If our price gets higher, maybe up to $3 or $5, then we can actually take down the entire $20 million," Greeson said. "And that way we would qualify for a major board. We plan on going to the [American Stock Exchange] and then to Nasdaq."

Samaritan has been looking at acquisitions, Greeson said, and in the next few months the company intends to bring another product in-house.

"We are really focused on products," she said. "We don't want to do science for science's sake. We've been able to get to Phase II on less than $5 million. The average is $100 million, and so we plan to duplicate the whole process with another product."

Greeson herself has no doubts about the future of Samaritan. She holds a doctorate in psychology, a degree in Motel/Hotel Management, has an MA, is an MBA candidate, is a best-selling author, has been a magazine columnist and the CEO and president of more than 10 companies. She has done enough to know where her strengths lie.

"I know what it takes to grow a company," she said. "It's what I am good at. I'm more excited about the company now than I have ever been. I know it's going to work, I really do. I'm going to make this happen, I'm determined." n