Targeted Genetics Corp. on Thursday announced that it has filed aregistration statement with the Securities and ExchangeCommission relating to a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of 2million shares of common stock.The offering price is expected to be between $10 and $12 per shareand would raise about $20 million for the Seattle company.Hambrecht & Quist and Vector Securities International Inc. will co-manage the underwriting group.Targeted Genetics is developing gene therapy products to treatcertain acquired and inherited diseases. The company was spun offfrom Immunex Corp. in 1989 and became independent of Immunexin June 1992, when it raised just over $17 million in a privateplacement. Immunex now owns 38 percent of Targeted Genetics, H.Stewart Parker, Targeted Genetics' president and chief executiveofficer, told BioWorld.The company has about $7 million on hand and expects to spendabout $5.5 million in 1994, said Parker, who expects the proceedsfrom the offering to take the company through the first half of 1996.Immunex has granted Targeted Genetics a worldwide, exclusivefield-of-use license for certain technologies and genes that may beuseful in gene therapy.The company is pursuing three complementary product developmentprograms: CTL-based immunotherapy, in vivo adeno-associatedvirus-based therapy, and stem cell therapy. Targeted Genetics hastwo Phase I clinical trials under way involving potential treatmentsfor HIV, and has recently started a Phase I marker gene trial inperipheral blood stem cells."We are ready to move many of these areas into clinicaldevelopment," Parker said. "And over the next 12 months we'll startseven additional Phase I trials."

-- By Jim Shrine

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