By Mary Welch

Abgenix Inc. said it reached agreements to raise $75 million through the sale of common stock in a private placement to help fund research and development and gain leverage in potential deals.

The Fremont, Calif., company sold 1.8 million shares of newly issued stock for $42 per share. Three of the participating institutional investors already had an equity position in the company.

Pacific Growth Equities Inc., of San Francisco, served as the placement agent.

"This is the amount we wanted to raise," said Kurt Leutzinger, Abgenix's chief financial officer. "There are a number of opportunities for us. We will be developing our pipeline. There are also a number of strategic collaborations being discussed where having the capital to deploy would certainly enhance the terms of the deals."

Abgenix's stock (NASDAQ:ABGX) closed Monday at $49.125, up 75 cents. The company on Sept. 30 reported about 15 million shares outstanding and a net loss of $10.2 million for the first nine months of the year. Abgenix had about $55.9 million in cash and equivalents on Sept. 30.

In line for financial support are four compounds, including ABX-IL8, which recently finished a multi-center Phase I/II trial in psoriasis. The trial data will be presented at a psoriasis conference in early December in London. ABX-IL8 is a fully human monoclonal antibody that targets interleukin-8, which is believed to contribute to a number of inflammatory diseases.

"ABX-IL8 is our most fully developed antibody in trials for a major disease," Leutzinger said.

Another compound, ABX-CBL, is in Phase II trials in graft-vs.-host disease. ABX-CBL is an in-licensed mouse antibody that binds to the CBL antigen, which is upregulated on activated immune cells, including T cells, B cells and natural killer cells.

The company's other drug candidates include ABX-RB2, a fully human antibody that targets the CBL antigens, which is in preclinical studies for autoimmune disorders as well as organ transplant rejection, primarily kidney and corneal transplant rejection; and ABX-EGF, its anticancer therapeutic. ABX-EGF, which is in Phase I, is a fully human monoclonal antibody that binds to epidermal growth factor with high affinity and has shown in vivo to inhibit tumor cell proliferation.