BioWorld ranked the underwriters of1997's public offerings, both initial and follow-on, in two basic ways.

First, BioWorld ranked the underwritersbased on the total amount of gross proceeds raised in initial and follow-on publicofferings combined.

In 1995, a new variant on a public offeringbecame popular: This category, institutional offering of registered stock, is detailedseparately in the financing charts that can be found on pp. 61-62 of this report. However,BioWorld has considered these offerings to be equivalent to normal follow-on publicofferings for the purposes of calculating underwriters' performance. If an underwritingfirm acted as the sole placement agent for the offering, then that firm was credited as“lead“ underwriter. If more than one firm acted as placement agent, then eachwas considered to be a co-manager, and credited as such for the purpose of calculatingunderwriters' performance.

For analysis on a “Full Credit ToLead“ basis, BioWorld applied the total gross proceeds raised in all threetypes of offerings (IPO, follow-on and institutional) to the lead underwriter for thoseofferings. For each underwriter cited, the graphs also indicate the total number of publicofferings in which a particular underwriter acted as the lead underwriter, as well as thetotal number of public offerings in which that same underwriter acted as either lead orco-manager.

For analysis on a “Full Credit ToAll“ basis, BioWorld applied the total gross proceeds raised in all threetypes of public offerings to each major underwriter of that offering (whether theunderwriter acted as lead or as co-manager).

Secondly, BioWorld singled out IPOsonly and then analyzed underwriter performance. The underwriters were again ranked on botha “Full Credit To Lead“ basis and a “Full Credit To All“ basis (asdescribed above). The graphs also indicate the total number of IPOs in which a particularunderwriter acted as the lead underwriter, as well as the total number of IPOs in whichthat same underwriter acted as either lead or co-manager.

In addition, BioWorld then analyzed theafter-market performance of the IPOs, and ranked the underwriters accordingly. Here,again, underwriters were ranked on both a “Full Credit To Lead“ basis and a“Full Credit To All“ basis. The after market performance compared the share (orunit) price at the IPO with the share (or unit) price at the end of the calendar year(12/31/97), expressed as percent change. If one particular underwriter acted as eitherlead or co-manager in more than one IPO, BioWorld calculated the average percentchange for those offerings.

Data pertaining to the public offerings per se– the offering price, the gross proceeds, the number of shares outstanding, thepost-offering market capitalization, the lead underwriter and the co-managing underwriters– were obtained from the public offerings charts found on pp. 49-60 in this report.

The graphs on the following pages depict onlythe top 10 underwriters for each category. However, a full 55 different underwriting firmsparticipated in 1997's public offerings. The ranking of those firms is depicted in chartform on the following pages.

— Jennifer Van Brunt