By Mary Welch

Genta Inc. raised $11.4 million through the private placement of 114 units, and will use the money to accelerate clinical trials of Anticode, its proprietary antisense product designed to treat cancer at its genetic source.

Each unit consists of 33,333 shares of common stock and warrants to purchase 8,333 shares at any time prior to the fifth anniversary of the closing.

"We were oversubscribed," said Gerald Schimmoeller, Genta's vice president and chief financial officer. "We combined new investors along with those who already have a stake in the company. We got some good marquee names, both institutional investors as well as individuals."

Paramount Capital Inc., of New York, served as the placement agent.

Schimmoeller estimates the financial infusion will last until the beginning of 2001. The private placement represents about 10 percent of the company's fully diluted shares. With the placement, Genta has about 24 million shares outstanding, he said.

The company's lead product is G3139, a bcl-2 antisense compound. G3139 is designed to reduce the bcl-2 protein level in cancer through an antisense mechanism that specifically targets the messenger RNA produced by the bcl-2 gene, which prevents it from triggering the production of disease-related proteins. In many human cancers, it is thought the bcl-2 protein is a major factor in inhibiting programmed cell death, and in contributing to the resistance of anticancer drugs, the company said.

Currently there are seven trials under way using G3139 by intravenous or subcutaneous delivery in patients with lymphoma and solid tumors. Recently G3139, in combination with dacarbazine, received FDA "fast-track" designation for advanced malignant melanoma.

In addition, clinical work is being conducted with the National Cancer Institute for patients with small-cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer and acute leukemia.

"All the indications and information we've received seem to be that G3139 is working out well and is positive," Schimmoeller said.

As of Sept. 30, Lexington, Mass.-based Genta had cash and equivalents of $1.5 million. It's net loss for the first three quarters of 1999 was about $3.9 million. It is the second time the company came close to running out of money. In 1996 it was within a month of running out of cash. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 15, 1996, p. 1.)

"I'd say we're a turnaround story," he said. "We had a change in management that got us to refocus on G3139. We recently hired a new president and CEO, Raymond Warrell, who is well-recognized in the oncology field. He will be able to further focus us in this area and take us through clinical trials, Phase III and the application cycle."

Genta's stock (NASDAQ:GNTA) closed unchanged Monday at $6.