Apr. 4, 2007 — La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company (LJPC) raised $34.8 million through the sale of 5.8 million shares at $6 in a bumped-up follow-on underwritten by Needham and A.G. Edwards. The company proposed to sell five million shares last week, when its share price was $6.94. The shares were sold from an existing shelf registration.
LJPC's Riquent abetimus is in Phase III testing to treat systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Riquent is a carrier plus 4 double-stranded (ds) oligonucleotides that bind to dsDNA on B cells.
The San Diego-based La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company was founded in 1989 to develop and market novel therapeutics for antibody-mediated autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and antibody-mediated thrombosis.
Goodwin Procter attorneys Mitchell Bloom, Arthur McGivern, and Carli Spina, represented La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company in this transaction.