By Brady Huggett

Introgen Therapeutics Inc. priced its initial public offering of 4 million shares at $8 per share, raising $32 million, far below the $92 million estimated when it filed during the roaring time for financings back in February.

"We are very happy to become a public company and glad to have successfully completed this goal under current market conditions," said James Albrecht, chief financial officer of Introgen.

SG Cowen Securities Corp., of New York; PaineWebber Inc., of New York; and Prudential Vector Healthcare, of Deerfield, Ill., led the offering and have a 30-day option to purchase an additional 600,000 shares to cover overallotments.

Introgen expects to use the net proceeds to conduct research and development, including clinical trials, advance process development and manufacturing capabilities, initiate product marketing and commercialization programs and for general corporate purposes.

Introgen, of Austin, Texas, will have 20.5 million shares outstanding after the offering and as of June 30 had $11.7 million in cash. The company is in a quiet period and could not comment on the offering's specifics. Its stock (NASDAQ: INGN) gained 50 cents Thursday to close at $8.50.

Introgen filed for an initial public offering early this year seeking $92 million, but did not indicate how many shares or at what price the shares would be offered. Its lead product is INGN 201, the combination of a naturally occurring p53 tumor suppressor gene and the company's adenoviral delivery system. Introgen is in collaboration with Aventis Pharma AG, of Frankfurt, Germany, on INGN 201 and the company has treated more than 400 patients with it. INGN 201 is currently in a Phase III trial for head and neck cancer and in Phase I and II trials for a wide range of other cancer indications. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 18, 2000, p. 1.)

Introgen's current and expected clinical trials evaluate its products both alone and in combination with chemotherapy, radiation and/or surgery. Aventis funds all research and development worldwide of Introgen's p53 products.

Introgen has seven other programs in research or preclinical stage. It has alliances with The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; the National Cancer Institute, of Bethesda, Md.; Baylor College of Medicine; Columbia University; Corixa Corp., of Seattle; Karolinska Institute; Sydney Kimmel Cancer Center; the Imperial Cancer Research Fund; the University of Iowa; the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; and the University of Wisconsin.