BioChem Pharma Inc. and North American Vaccine Inc. agreedWednesday to postpone a secondary offering of 4.25 million shares ofNAVA stock held by BioChem Pharma. Also postponed wasBioChem's exchange of 500,000 NAVA shares for 200,000 shares ofholding company IVAX Corp."We're not in need of the cash so it's no problem to postpone," Jean-Yves Duthel, BioChem's vice president, public relations, toldBioWorld. "We want to sell, but we want to sell at our price. We willnot have the price dictated by today's (market) conditions."NAVA stock was selling for about $12 per share when the offering wasoriginally proposed in April. NAVA, of Beltsville, Md., was at about$10 per share when the offer was amended in June. The stock(AMEX:NVX) gained 88 cents Wednesday to close at $9 per share.BioChem Pharma, of Laval, Quebec, owns 38 percent of NAVA andwants to reduce its share to less than 20 percent, so the stake will betreated as a portfolio investment and not have to be reported onBioChem's books, Duthel said.IVAX, of North Miami, Fla., was to convert its 1 million shares ofNAVA's series A preferred stock into 2 million shares of commonstock. Together with the shares from BioChem, it would hold morethan 19 percent of NAVA.Duthel said it makes sense to wait a few months, when results fromNAVA's Phase III trial in Sweden of a DTAP(Diphtheria/Tetanus/Acellular Pertussis) vaccine are in. _ Jim Shrine

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