Cambridge NeuroScience Inc. received commitmentsfrom a directed offering of $9.6 million, which wouldtake the company into 1997, when the first Phase IIIstudies of Cerestat should be completed.

The Cambridge, Mass., company said Thursday it gotcommitments for the purchase of 1.2 million shares at $8each in a directed public offering to institutionalinvestors. Robertson, Stephens & Co. L.P., of SanFrancisco, was placement agent for the offering.

Cambridge NeuroScience will have about $22 million incash and 13.3 million shares outstanding when the dealcloses, which is scheduled for next Tuesday.

Cerestat, being developed in collaboration with IngelheimGermany-based Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, is an N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) inhibitor designed toprevent nerve cell death and brain damage by preventingexcessive entry of calcium into nerve cells. Its leadindications are for treatment of traumatic brain injury andstroke.

Elkan Gamzu, president and CEO of CambridgeNeuroScience, said the company hopes to have the firstpatients enrolled this year in a 700-patient Phase III studyof Cerestat for traumatic brain injury. The companieshope to start enrollment into a 900-patient study forstroke by the end of the second quarter of 1996, he said.

Boehringer Ingelheim already has provided CambridgeNeuroScience more than $15 million related to thecollaboration. The German firm also is funding 75percent of development costs in the U.S. and Europe.

That's part of the reason Cambridge NeuroScience's burnrate has been trimmed to slightly more than $1 millionper month. "With this [financing] we will have money totake us into 1997 and achieve a number of milestoneevents," Gamzu said, adding that the financing was donein a manner that didn't dilute the stock, and didn't requirelarge time commitments that would take management'sfocus away from 1996 goals.

Gamzu would not say which institutions purchased thestock, but said "our investors will be very pleased whenthis information becomes known."

The company's stock closed Thursday at $8.25, up 25cents. Boehringer Ingelheim paid $8, about $2 off theprice of the shares when they were registered. n

-- Jim Shrine

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