By Brady Huggett

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. filed a registration statement with the SEC to offer 4.5 million shares of its common stock, a sale that would raise $315 million based on Friday's closing price of $70 per share.

The stock (NASDAQ: OSIP) fell $1.875 Monday to close at $68.125.

Robertson Stephens Inc., of San Francisco, and Lehman Brothers Inc., of New York, will be joint book-running managers for the offering. Other underwriters are Prudential Vector Healthcare Group, Lazard Freres & Co. LLC, and Adams, Harkness & Hill Inc. The underwriters have an option to purchase 675,000 shares to cover overallotments. OSI currently has 26.5 million shares outstanding.

The company is in a quiet period following the announcement and was unable to comment on the offering.

OSI recently received the rights to its anticancer product OSI-774 back from Pfizer Inc., a Federal Trade Commission requirement for Pfizer's acquisition of Warner-Lambert. The product is currently in Phase II trials. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 15, 2000, p. 1.)

The company will use the proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including research and development efforts, capital expenditures, working capital and clinical development expenditures relating to OSI-774.

OSI formed a partnership with Tanabe Seiyaku Co. Ltd. to develop small-molecule drugs to treat Type II diabetes in September 1999, a collaboration that could result in $30 million in milestone payments and success fees. Two months later, OSI sold the assets of its diagnostics business, including its wholly owned subsidiary, Oncogene Science Diagnostics, to Bayer Corp., generating $11 million. In February, the company raised $56 million through a sale of 3.325 million shares to several investors. As of June 30, OSI had about $83 million in cash and short-term investments. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 2, 1999; Sept. 19, 1999; and Feb. 28, 2000.)

OSI is a pharmaceutical research and development organization that focuses on discovering and developing novel, small-molecule drug candidates for commercialization by pharmaceutical companies. It has more than 40 research and development programs in a variety of areas, including cancer, diabetes and obesity, psoriasis and influenza.