By Mary Welch

The Immune Response Corp. filed a shelf registration statement with the SEC to offer about $25 million worth of its common stock for general operating purposes.

"It is important to remember that a shelf registration means that we are going through the SEC process so that we have these shares to sell at a future date or dates," said Howard Sampson, the company's chief financial officer. "There are no immediate plans to offer them in the near future. We just want to have them and then wait and see what happens."

The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company registered 4 million shares with the SEC, which would add about 16 percent to the 24.5 million shares currently outstanding. If the stock (NASDAQ:IMNR) sold today the company would gross about $26.7 million, based on Tuesday's closing price of $6.687, which was down 31.25 cents per share.

The company, which suffered a setback in its Phase III clinical program, recently cut its staff by 30 percent. In May, an independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) determined the Phase III study of Remune should be stopped after an interim analysis. The DSMB found no difference in the ability of the immune-based therapy to slow the progression of HIV vs. placebo. (See BioWorld Today, May 18, 1999, p. 1.)

Remune is an inactivated form of HIV, lacking its envelope, combined with a mineral oil-based adjuvant. The company is partnered on the drug's development with Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., which was purchased by Warner-Lambert Co., of Morris Plains, N.J., earlier this year.

Agouron and Warner-Lambert plan to start additional trials for Remune, and Agouron recently paid Immune Response its quarterly $5 million payment. This latest payment to Immune Response was the fourth of six planned quarterly payments that are part of their $77 million agreement signed about a year ago. (See BioWorld Today, June 12, 1998, p. 1.)

As a result of the Remune decision, Immune Response cut 43 employees and took a one-time charge of $650,000 against earnings in the second quarter, or 23 cents per share. (See BioWorld Today June 22, 1999, p. 1.)

"We made the cuts and now we're in the process of accomplishing the goals of the reorganization and moving forward," Sampson said.

The company's second-quarter results won't be disclosed until early August, but Sampson said the company had more than $27 million cash in hand. He declined to disclose the company's anticipated burn rate. The company's net loss was $1.3 million in the first quarter.