ImClone Systems Inc. announced that it has raised slightlymore than $2 million through the completion of an offshoreplacement of 540,000 shares of its common stock.

The stock (NASDAQ:IMCL) was sold under Regulation S, whichrequires investors to hold it without reselling it for at least 40days. Under Regulation S, shares do not need to be registeredwith the Securities and Exchange Commission.

ImClone of New York sold the shares at a slight discount to themarket, Sam Waksal, the company's chief executive officer, toldBioWorld. With the placement, the company has approximately10 million shares outstanding.

ImClone has a burn rate of about $1.2 million per month, andwith the financing, has about $10 million in cash. The companyis currently considering some non-equity financing that Waksalsaid he hopes will, in combination with milestone paymentsand revenues from its collaborators, give the company close totwo years worth of R&D funding. ImClone is not currentlyplanning any further offerings.

The company decided to make a Registration S placement,Waksal added, because "we think our stock is way too low," andwanted to avoid further dilution with the registration of moreshares. ImClone's stock was trading at approximately $28 pershare in the spring of 1992 and is currently at an all-time low,he said. ImClone's stock closed at $5 a share on Wednesday,down 13 cents.

Waksal would not disclose the two investors in the latestplacement, but described them as large institutions.

Proceeds from the placement will go toward the developmentof the company's therapeutic vaccines, its interleukin-6 (IL-6)mutein platelet stimulator, which the company is developingfor thrombocytopenia, and its epidermal growth-factorreceptor antibody, being developed as a cancer therapeutic forseveral potential indications. By the end of this year, Waksalsaid, the company expects to have four products in clinicaltrials for five indications.

ImClone is planning to file two investigational new drugapplications (INDs) in the first quarter of this year, one ofwhich will be for IL-6. The agent is currently in a Phase I/IItrial outside the U.S. ImClone's therapeutic vaccine for thetreatment of malignant melanoma is currently in U.S. PhaseI/II trials.

ImClone has several agreements with other companies,including a manufacturing and marketing agreement withLederle-Praxis Biologics concerning anti-idiotypic andrecombinant vaccines for herpes, gonorrhea, meningitides andhepatitis A; a strategic alliance with Abbott Laboratoriescovering several diagnostic products; and a research,development and licensing agreement with ChugaiPharmaceutical Co. Ltd. concerning ImClone's Totipotent stemcell factor (T-SCF).

The company's last financing took place in May 1993, when thecompany sold 1.6 million shares at $7 a share, raising $11.2million. ImClone went public in November 1991, raising $35million through the offering of 2.5 million shares at $14 pershare. -- Karl Thiel

-- Karl A. Thiel Associate Editor

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