By Lisa Seachrist

Washington Editor

Epoch Pharmaceuticals Inc. raised $10 million in a private sale of common stock in an effort to reinvent itself as a genomics chemistry company and apply for relisting on Nasdaq.

The Redmond, Wash., company enticed mostly new investors to the offering that entailed the sale of nearly 1.43 million shares at $7 each - a 15 percent discount to a specified trading average. Epoch's stock (OTCBB:EPPH) closed Wednesday at $15.187, up $1.84.

"It really is a rebirth of the company - it's a major turnaround," said Sanford S. Zweifach, president and CFO of Epoch. "We expect to be re-listed soon."

Epoch started out as MicroProbe Corp., a diagnostics company. When MicroProbe's leading technology ran afoul of a patent held by San Diego-based Gen-Probe Inc., MicroProbe sold its diagnostics business to Becton Dickinson and Co., of Franklin Lakes, N.J. Out of the diagnostics business, the company changed its name to Epoch Pharmaceuticals and set out to develop oligonucleotide-based gene therapies.

"What we discovered was the technology had important applications to DNA analysis relying on hybridization techniques," Zweifach said. "Anyone working on DNA hybridization is talking to us."

As a result, Zweifach said the company is out of the gene therapy business and is focusing on the molecular diagnostics and genomics business. The company believes its technology will enable the detection of inherited genetic diseases and single nucleotide polymorphisms. In January 1999, Epoch licensed some of its technology to PE Biosystems Group, of Foster City, Calif.

Zweifach said the company is likely to change its name once again to reflect its new focus when it relists on Nasdaq.