By Charles Craig

SuperGen Inc. entered into a financing deal with Oracle Corp. Chairman Lawrence Ellison that could make the computer software company founder the largest shareholder in the biotechnology firm, with an 18 percent stake for $40 million.

SuperGen, of Emeryville, Calif., sold Ellison 1.67 million shares at $9 per share in a private placement worth $15 million and gave him the option of buying another 890,000 shares at the same price for $8 million by the end of October.

In addition, the Oracle chairman and CEO received warrants for another 1.26 million SuperGen shares at $13.50 per share. If exercised the warrants would generate $17 million.

SuperGen, which went public in March 1996, has about 17 million shares outstanding. Ellison's potential $40 million equity investment for 3.82 million shares would give him an 18 percent interest. SuperGen's current largest shareholder is Israel Chemicals Ltd., of Ramat-Gan, Israel.

The $9 per share private placement to Ellison for 2.56 million shares represents a 30 percent discount to the $12.875 closing price Monday of SuperGen stock (NASDAQ:SUPG). The company ended the day Tuesday at $13.75, up $0.875.

Les Stickles, spokesman for SuperGen, said his company will benefit both from Ellison's cash infusion and his business acumen as a member of SuperGen's board of directors.

"We now will have the founders of Oracle and Amgen on the board," Stickles said, referring to Ellison and SuperGen's chairman and CEO, Joseph Rubinfeld, who was a co-founder of Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., in 1980.

SuperGen's programs include development of generic anticancer drugs, with five products on the market. The company also is conducting clinical evaluations with its own drugs for treatment of obesity and for blood-cell disorders, such as anemia associated with kidney disease, cancer chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

The obesity pill, a human steroidal hormone, is the most advanced of SuperGen's own products in clinical development. The synthetic hormone, whose mechanism of action is not known, is in Phase II studies. The company's researchers have said the hormone does not suppress appetite or increase metabolic activity, but may affect the amount of fat stored by the body or the amount of fat burned for energy.

Preclinical studies demonstrated SuperGen's fat pill achieved weight reduction in several mouse models of human obesity.

As of Dec. 31, 1996, SuperGen had $13.9 million in cash and reported a net loss of $8.76 million for last year. The company said funding from the $15 million private placement will be used to support clinical trials, product commercialization and drug acquisitions.

Stickles said Ellison's investment was personal and did not involve Oracle, which is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. *