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Geron Sells Shares To Raise $40 Million By Tim Simmers, BUSINESS WRITER Article Last Updated: Friday, November 12, 2004 - 11:49:03 AM PST MENLO PARK -- Striking while market interest is hot, stem-cell pioneer Geron Corp. announced Thursday that it agreed to sell 6.5 million shares of its stock to institutional investors to raise $40 million. Geron became the first among a tiny group of publicly traded stem cell researchers to capitalize on the state's $3 billion stem cell research initiative, Proposition 71, and will use the money partly to expand its stem cell work. "It's a quick and efficient way to raise capital to expand in the stem cell area," said Steven Burrill, life science merchant banker at Burrill & Co. in San Francisco. Menlo Park-based Geron sold the shares in a private placement at a discount price of $6.10 per share to two East Coast institutions. The stock closed at $6.96 Thursday on the Nasdaq Exchange, down 34 cents. The stock was down 3 cents to $6.93 per share at 9:30 a.m. today. Geron expects to spend some of the money on a path to a regulatory filing and clinical trials that target spinal cord injuries using cells from human embryonic stem cells. The passage of Prop. 71 fueled investor interest in Geron, said David L. Greenwood, Geron's chief financial officer. The company has a long history in stem cell research, about 200 patents in the field and spent $80 million of its own money on early research in the field, targeting treatments and cures in Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes and other ailments. "Sometimes you have to be opportunistic, and opportunity was flowing from the passage of Prop. 71," said Greenwood. "There's been investor interest in us leading up to the election and after it." Greenwood declined to name the investors. California's biotechnology community has been injected with new hope from Prop. 71, and expects the $3 billion funding over 10 years to create a local boom in recruiting research scientists and construction of biotechnology research facilities at universities. Geron also said it will use some of the money it raised to fund trials on its cancer vaccine and its telomerase inhibitor next year. In connection with the sale, the company issued warrants with a 60- day exercise period to purchase about 2 million shares at the same price per share, and longer term warrants, exercisable after 180 days, to purchase about 2.3 million shares at a premium. The company's cash position is now about $130 million, Greenwood said. Tim Simmers can be reached at (650) 348-4361 or [log in to unmask] SOURCE: San Mateo County Times, CA http://tinyurl.com/72854 * * * Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]> Please place this address in your address book Please purge all others Web site: Parkinsons Resources on the WWWeb http://www.geocities.com/murraycharters ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn