Synergy Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of new drugs to treat gastrointestinal disorders and diseases, recently announced that the company has completed a private placement, raising an aggregate $8.6 million through the sale of common stock at a price of $0.70 per share.

The proceeds from the private placement will be used to fund a Phase IIa clinical trial of Synergy’s SP-304 for chronic constipation, which is scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2010. SP-304, a synthetic analog of the human gastrointestinal hormone uroguanylin, recently finished a Phase I clinical trial in volunteers.

Mr. Gabriele Cerrone, chairman of Synergy Pharmaceuticals, stated, “This financing combined with the earlier financing we announced last summer of $7.09 million considerably strengthens our balance sheet, reflecting the strong continued interest in our drug candidate SP-304 to treat GI disorders.” Mr. Cerrone continued, “We believe that the market for GI

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This is getting close to a week old, but is still quite hilarious, even more so with Stallone's signature bad timing of taking a huge ad contract in wartime. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone, mighty destroyer of Soviet opponents in the "Rambo" and "Rocky" movies, now plans to advertise Russian vodka. Russian vodka producer Synergy said on Friday it had signed a one-year contract with Stallone, who will appear in television and newspaper advertisements for the vodka brand Russian Ice, starting September 1. Sources valued the deal at $1 million. Stallone -- whose film character John Rambo killed Soviet troops by the dozen in Afghanistan and whose Rocky Balboa humiliated Soviet boxer Ivan Drago -- will advertise the product under the slogan: "There is a bit of Russian in all of us." "The advertising campaign concept was based on the ...