Poniard Pharmaceuticals rises on public offering news
Shares of Poniard Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: PARD) climbed on heavy volume today after the South San Francisco, Calif..-based biotech firm announced a public offering of 10.3 million shares of its common stock at $6.33 a share.
Poniard is offering all of the shares. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,545,436 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.
CIBC World Markets Corp. and Lazard Capital Markets LLC are acting as joint book-running managers in the offering.
Pacific Growth Equities, LLC, Leerink Swann & Co., Inc. and Fortis Securities LLC are acting as co-managers.
The past year has been a bumpy one for Poniard, which in 2006 changed its name from NeoRx Corp. to Poniard and moved its headquarters from Seattle, Wash., to San Francisco.
In August 2006, the firm said it received a letter from the Nasdaq stock exchange, saying shares in the company didn't meet the exchange's $1-per-share minimum bid price.
By 10:48 ET today, Poniard’s stock was up $0.37, or 5.8%, to $6.73 on unusually heavy volume of 1 million shares compared with a three-month daily average volume of 40,773 shares. Shares have traded between $2.57 (on Sept. 25, 2006) and $8.88(on May 9, 2006) in the past year.
The offering represents the second in a month for Poniard, which announced on April 13 that it would sell up to 9.5 million shares of common stock in a public offering.
Poniard seeks to develop cancer treatments.
