Biomira raises more cash to advance cancer vaccines
(All figures in U.S. dollars, unless noted)
By Ian Karleff
NEW YORK, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Biomira Inc. (Toronto:BRA.TO - news), a Canadian biotechnology company working on cancer vaccines, said on Wednesday a group of European investors had raised its funding commitments to $100 million to help push the firm's products through to commercialization.
The anonymous investors had originally committed $36 million over a 30-month period but have now opted to buy up to 8.5 million shares for $100 million over 42 months.
This will bolster the company's cash position, which sat at $26.9 million at the end of the third quarter of 1999, Biomira's chief executive, Alex McPherson, told investors at the annual BIO CEO Investor conference in New York.
Total shares outstanding will increase to 53.2 million after the financing is completed.
Biomira's shares were 10 Canadian cents higher at C$17.35 on the Toronto Stock Exchange in early afternoon trading on Wednesday, and were 2/16 higher at 11-15/16 on Nasdaq.
Edmonton-based Biomira also said it expects to complete enrollment of its phase three trial for its metastatic breast cancer vaccine THERATOPE in the second half of 2000. The trial should confirm whether the vaccine will increase patient survival rates as suggested by earlier data.
McPherson said THERATOPE would target about 60,000 patients in the U.S. alone, with an annual market value -- as estimated by analysts -- after five years of $400 millionin sales.
Marketing approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could come as soon as late 2001 or early 2002, McPherson said.
The company's BLP 25 Vaccine for the treatment of small-cell lung cancer could advance through trials as quickly as two years.
``Because this is such a bloody awful disease...we are looking at trials being completed in a two-year time frame,' McPherson told Reuters.
Provided the trials proceed without a hitch, BLP 25 could be approved by the FDA in late 2002, and in five years could be registering sales of $1 billion a year, McPherson said.
($1=$1.45 Canadian) |
