Procept Inc., whose lead product is an AIDS drug in Phase I/II trials,said Friday it raised $11 million through the sale of an undisclosednumber of units consisting of one share and a warrant.

Stanley Erck, president and CEO of Procept, said the funding givesthe Cambridge, Mass., company enough money to support operations"well into 1997."

As of March 31, 1996, the end of the first quarter, Procept had littlemore than three-months worth of cash. The company had $4 millionand reported a net loss for the quarter of $3 million. It had 7.8 millionshares outstanding prior to the private placement.

Procept did not disclose the per-share price at which the warrants arecallable, but Erck said if all the warrants are exercised, the companywill receive another $16 million.

Procept's most advanced drug candidate, PRO 2000, is a smallmolecule drug designed to bind to the CD4 receptor on T cells andprevent HIV from infecting the immune system cells. The drug isbeing evaluated in Phase I/II studies in Europe.

In January 1996, Procept and scientists at Brigham and Women'sHospital, in Boston, formed a collaboration, creating a new company,called VacTex Corp. Procept is contributing research to VacTex inexchange for an ownership stake and has an option to buy thecompany, which was started with seed financing from BostonMedical Investments Inc.

VacTex, building on discoveries by researchers at Procept andBrigham and Women's Hospital, will target treatments for diseasessuch as tuberculosis. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 12, 1996, p. 2.)

Procept also has an alliance with Sandoz Ltd. _ which is mergingwith fellow Basel, Switzerland-based drug maker, Ciba-Geigy Ltd. _targeting autoimmune diseases and organ transplant.

Erck said Procept currently is in negotiations with otherpharmaceutical firms for collaborations.

Procept's stock (NASDAQ:PRCT) closed Friday at $2.94, down 25cents. n

-- Charles Craig

(c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.