Inhale Therapeutic Systems has filed a registration statementwith the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initialpublic offering of 2.5 million shares of common stock.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company anticipates that the IPO will raisebetween $11 and $13 a share and generate up to $32.5 millionin gross proceeds. Lehman Brothers Inc. and Volpe, Welty & Co.will manage the offering and have an option to purchase375,000 shares to cover overallotments. Inhale has proposedtrading under the NASDAQ symbol INHL.

Following the offering, Inhale will have about 9 million sharesof stock outstanding. It now has $5.5 million in cash on hand,said Ajit Gill, the company's chief financial officer. He said aprivate placement last April raised $5 million.

The company is developing a pulmonary drug delivery systemapplicable to a wide range of peptides, proteins and othermacromolecules currently delivered by injection for systemicand lung diseases. Inhale is designing its delivery system tointegrate customized protein formulations and proprietary finepowder technologies with a proprietary inhalation device forefficient, reproducible deep-lung delivery of macromoleculedrugs.

Inhale has tested its pulmonary delivery system in animalsand in a 24-person Phase I clinical trial for insulin.

The company is also involved in early-stage feasibility orresearch collaborations with several pharmaceutical andbiotechnology companies to develop therapeutic products usingits pulmonary delivery system. Potential collaborators includeBerlex Laboratories Inc., Armour Pharmaceutical Co., AmgenInc., Immunex Corp., Genzyme Corp. and a Japanesepharmaceutical company.

-- Jim Shrine

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