Public offering nets a huge $352mm for Onyx Pharmaceuticals

Cancer therapeutics company Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. netted $352.4mm through the public sale of 4.4mm common shares at $81.50 apiece. The offering is the largest ever for the company, following a $311mm combined stock and debt sale in 2009. Onyx will use some of the proceeds to fund continuing development for its carfilzomib (Phase III for multiple myeloma) and oprozomib (Phase Ib/II for hematologic malignancies), and it will also put proceeds towards global commercialization activities for Krypolis injection, a carfilzomib formulation that received accelerated approval by the FDA in July 2012 for multiple myeloma patients who have already been treated with two other therapies (including bortezomib and an immunomodulatory agent), and are showing signs of disease progression.