With the stock price of Sequana Therapeutics Inc. soaring more than150 percent since its initial public offering (IPO) six months ago, theLa Jolla, Calif., genomics company is heading back to the equitymarkets with an expectation of raising more than $35 million.

Sequana registered Monday to sell 1.5 million shares in the follow-onoffering. Based on the $23.25 closing price of the company's stock(NASDAQ:SQNA), the equity financing would raise $34.9 million.The company's shares ended the day down $1.25.

In its August 1995 IPO Sequana debuted at $9 per share andgenerated gross proceeds of $18 million on the sale of 2 millionshares.

Sequana, rather than sequencing human genes at random, focuses onidentifying disease-causing genes and their functions for developmentof drugs and diagnostics based on the information. The company'sresearch targets genes involved in diabetes, asthma, osteoporosis,obesity, schizophrenia, manic depression and inflammatory boweldisease.

Cancer also is a target and last month Sequana officials said theydiscovered a gene associated with hereditary melanoma, a fatal skincancer.

Sequana has gene discovery collaborations with BoehringerIngleheim GmbH, of Ingelheim, Germany, for asthma; GlaxoWellcome plc, of London, for type II diabetes; and Corange Ltd., ofBermuda, and its subsidiary, Boehringer Mannheim GmbH, ofMannheim, Germany, for osteoporosis.

Sequana Monday released its 1995 fiscal results. The company said itended the year with $41.3 million in cash and a net loss for 1995 of$6 million.

Underwriting the follow-on offering are Hambrecht & Quist LLC, ofSan Francisco, and Lehman Brothers Inc. and Punk, Ziegel & KnoellL.P., both of New York. Following the stock offering Sequana willhave about 9.6 million shares outstanding. n

-- Charles Craig

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