MedClone Inc. announced Thursday that it has raised $2 million in aprivate placement.

The Global Health Sciences Fund and the Invesco Strategic PortfoliosInc.-Health Sciences Portfolio participated in the financing. Bothfunds are managed by Invesco Trust Company of Denver.

MedClone was founded in 1986 to commercialize technologydeveloped by Richard Weisbart, chief of rheumatology at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. In fact, as of August 1992,MedClone was the only company in which UCLA had taken an equityinterest. MedClone has been working on investment capital of about$2 million, primarily from Southern California Ventures.

The Los Angeles-based company is developing disease-specificimmunotherapies for autoimmune diseases including systemic lupuserythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune diabetes.

MedClone's initial product, MAb3E10, an idiotype vaccine therapy totreat lupus, is scheduled to enter Phase I human clinical trials in theU.S. and Switzerland next month.

-- Jennifer Van Brunt Senior Editor

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