Cell Therapeutics Snags $25M

Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CTIC]]) said today it has raised $25 million by granting preferred stock and warrants to a single institutional investor. The investor, whose name isn’t being disclosed, also obtained the right to buy more shares in the company for an additional $25 million at a future date. Cell Therapeutics, a cancer drug developer founded in 1991, has accumulated a deficit of about $1.54 billion through its history, according to its most recent quarterly report. The investor will now have about a 9.7 percent ownership stake in the company. Cell Therapeutics said it may use the new money to pay down some old debt, or acquire new technologies. Shares of Cell Therapeutics closed yesterday at about 39 cents.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.