Neoprobe Corp. raised about $9 million in a public offering of 1.65million shares at $5.50 each, twice the cost of shares sold in aFebruary offering.

The Dublin, Ohio, company, which is burning about $2.25 millionper quarter, said the financing should give it cash to last 18 months.Neoprobe now has 16 million shares outstanding, and 21.1 millionout on a fully diluted basis. Sunrise Securities Corp., of New York,placed the shares.

Neoprobe's stock (NASDAQ:NEOP) closed Thursday at $6.25, up56 cents per share. It was trading at $1.50 per share at the end of1994.

David Bivins, the company's communications coordinator, saidpresentations on Neoprobe's RIGS (radioimmunoguided surgery)products at an oncology meeting in March helped with the financing."It sparked a lot more interest in our company on the part of existinginvestors and brought on a lot of new investors," he said. "It places usin a good position to finalize strategic partnerships for marketing anddistribution."

RIGSscan CR49, a monoclonal antibody-based cancer detectionsystem, is in Phase III trials in the U.S. and Europe in both primaryand recurrent colorectal cancer. Regulatory filings are expected inEurope in the fourth quarter and in the U.S. in early 1996, Bivinssaid.

The financing, Bivins said, will allow Neoprobe to devote moreresources to development of its RIGS/ACT (adoptive cellulartherapy) program for treatment of advanced colorectal and pancreaticcancers, both of which are in early human trials. _ Jim Shrine

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