By Mary Welch

The quest for financing continued as SuperGen Inc., Emisphere Technologies Inc. and BioPure Corp. each filed to sell more than 2 million shares of common stock in a public offering.

SuperGen proposed to sell 2 million shares, and certain other stockholders are selling an additional 700,000 shares in the offering. Based on Tuesday's opening price (NASDAQ:SUPG) of $54.687, the company would raise about $109 million. Emisphere intends to raise about $151.2 million by selling 2.5 million shares of common stock. Emipshere's stock (NASDAQ:EMIS) opened Tuesday's at $60.50. Biopure (NASDAQ:BPUR) intends to sell 2.5 million shares, which at Tuesday's opening price of $34.60, would gross about $86.5 million.

SuperGen stock fell $1.187 Tuesday. Emisphere lost $3 and BioPure fell 62.5 cents.

SuperGen, of San Ramon, Calif., will use the proceeds for working capital, general corporate purposes and research and development activities. In addition, the underwriters will have an option to purchase another 405,000 shares to cover overallotments. The offering is being managed by Banc of America Securities LLC, of San Francisco, and the New York-based firms Lehman Brothers Inc., Prudential Vector Healthcare Group and Warburg Dillon Read LLC.

For the first nine months of 1999, SuperGen had a net loss of $28.3 million, or $1.29 per share. For the nine-month period, revenues increased to a little over $3 million. As of Sept. 30, the company had $33 million in cash, which it expected would have lasted until Dec. 31, 2000. It currently has 24.95 million shares outstanding.

Late last year, SuperGen signed a sales and marketing deal worth up to $150 million for it cancer drug, rubitecan, with Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill. Rubitecan, an oral chemotherapy compound in the camptothecin class, is in Phase III studies for pancreatic cancer. Trial data should be ready in the third quarter, with a NDA filing expected in the fourth quarter. Rubitecan is also being tested in 11 other tumor types. (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 23, 1999, p. 1.)

In September, the company raised $16.6 million in a private placement designed to help fund rubitecan's clinical trials and trials for different indications for Nipent, its approved hairy-cell leukemia small-molecule drug that generated $3 million in 1998 sales. In March, SuperGen filed a supplemental NDA for other indications, including mature T-cell lymphomas, primarily cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and peripheral T-cell lymphoma.

Emisphere, of Tarrytown, N.Y., granted the underwriters an option to purchase an additional 375,000 shares for overallotments. Chase H&Q, of New York, is the lead manager. Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown and Warburg Dillon Read LLC, both of New York, and Adams, Harkness & Hill Inc., of Boston, are co-managers. If the overallotment is fully exercised, the company will have a little more than 17 million shares outstanding.

The company figures it will net about $129.5 million and intends to use the proceeds to fund development of its preclinical-stage programs and the Phase III program for its liquid oral heparin until a suitable marketing partner is found.

The company's oral liquid heparin formulation for the prevention of deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) is in Phase III trials at sites in the U.S., Canada and the UK. The company intends to submit a new drug application in the third or fourth quarter of 2001, with launch early in 2002. In November, it raised $23.5 million by selling 2.3 million shares of stock at $11 each to help fund the Phase III trials.

The company reported first-quarter fiscal year 2000 results, which ended Oct. 31, 1999 showed revenues totaling $625,000. For that quarter, the company posted a net loss of $9.9 million, or 81 cents per share. As of Oct. 31, the company had $20.4 million in cash. For the fiscal year that ended July 31, the company had a net loss of $30.7 million.

BioPure, of Cambridge, Mass., will use proceeds for pre-marketing and marketing expenditures for Hemopure, its investigational oxygen therapeutic now in Phase III trials, as well as to fund additional trials for Hemopure.

J.P. Morgan & Co., of New York, is the lead manager. Salomon Smith Barney, of New York; Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc., of Milwaukee; and Adams, Harkness & Hill Inc. will act as co-managers. The company granted the underwriters an option to purchase 375,000 additional shares to cover overallotments.

Hemopure is a purified, modified bovine hemoglobin. It is in Phase III trials as an alternative to red blood cell transfusions before, during and after surgeries. The company believes it has potential for use in other critical-care conditions such as trauma, stroke, heart attack and malignant hypoxic tumors.

Biopure's fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 1999, and the company reported a year-end net loss of $35.5 million, or $2.41 per share. The company posted year-end revenues of $2.8 million. It had $30.7 million in cash. The company has about 22.3 million shares outstanding.