By Debbie Strickland

Triangle Pharmaceuticals Inc. boosted its available cash 60 percent with the close of a private placement of common stock expected to produce net proceeds of $29.4 million.

The buyers were several funds managed by Soros Fund Management LLC, of New York, which paid $15 per share for 2 million shares, a price about 15 percent less than the average trading price over the previous 30 days.

The Durham, N.C.-based company's stock (NASDAQ:
VIRS) closed unchanged Monday at $24.375.

Founded in mid-1995, Triangle has made several announcements of multimillion-dollar investments in the company. Combined, these total $97 million: $52 million from private placements, $42 million from the initial public offering, conducted in November 1996, and $3 million in the exercise of over-allotment options.

Triangle ended the first quarter of this year with $49.8 million in cash. Operating expenses during the period were $4.3 million.

The proceeds from the new private placement will fund continuing development of the company's seven drug candidates in three areas: viral disease, cancer and psoriasis. Of the seven compounds, four are reverse transcriptase inhibitors, two targeted against HIV and two designed to treat both HIV and hepatitis B. Triangle also has rights to prospective treatments of resistant herpes and herpes labialis; brain, lung and other cancers; and psoriasis.

"We're going to need significant funds to move all these compounds forward," said Carolyn Underwood, vice president for marketing and investor relations. "We won't have to worry so much in the immediate future about the funding. The company can focus on development of the compounds rather than on funding."

"They're pursuing a very aggressive program [of drug development] that requires a lot of capital," agreed analyst Mary Ann Gray, of Dillon, Read & Co. Inc., in New York. She rates Triangle's shares a "buy," the highest rating, citing the track record of the Wellcome plc management veterans running the company.

"Management has a great deal of expertise in developing antiviral compounds," Gray said.

David Barry, chairman and CEO, and Phillip Furman, Triangle's chief scientific officer, helped develop AZT for AIDS and acyclovir for herpes at Wellcome, before that company merged with Glaxo to become Glaxo Wellcome plc, of London. The combined annual sales of these two drugs is $1.3 billion.

In a December report on the company, Gray praised its strategy of licensing promising compounds rather than pursuing internal drug discovery. She noted Triangle's development portfolio includes candidates with clinical data, compounds similar to others already on the market, and newer, more investigational substances.

AIDS Drug Progressing In European Study

Triangle's lead drug candidate, the HIV treatment MKC 442, is currently in a European Phase Ib/IIa trial. A Phase Ia trial demonstrated the nucleoside analogue was well tolerated. Triangle is developing the compound under license from Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., of Tokyo, which has rights in certain East Asia countries, including Japan, China and Taiwan.

The company is also funding Phase II pilot efficacy studies with the cancer drug alanosine -- an amino acid analogue derived from Streptomyces alanosinicus -- at the University of California, San Diego. Researchers are testing the drug as a treatment for brain cancers that lack the enzyme methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP).

Triangle has an option to license alanosine from the University of California to treat various cancers lacking MTAP. *