Progen Industries (ASX: PGL; NASDAQ: PGLA) today announced it is raising A$20.0 million through an underwritten private share placement and will commence a share purchase plan (SPP) to existing shareholders to partially fund the Phase 3 clinical development of PI-88 in post-resection liver cancer.

Under this capital raise:

• 3,690,037 million fully paid ordinary shares, or 9.1% of our issued capital, will be issued to institutional and sophisticated investors at A$5.42 per share. The placement price represents the 5-day average closing ASX market price up to an including 15 December 2006.
  

• All existing shareholders residing in Australia and New Zealand are eligible to purchase up to A$5,000 worth of additional Progen shares without brokerage or transaction costs at the placement price of A$5.42 per share. The maximum amount that would be raised if all Australian and New Zealand registered shareholders invest the maximum A$5,000 is $14.4 million, the actual amount raised will depend on the level of uptake from Progen shareholders. .

The private share placement has been underwritten by eG Capital Pty Ltd. Progen expects to allot the 3,690,037 placement shares on Thursday 21 December 2006.

Justus Homburg, Chief Executive Officer of Progen said “Today’s announcement of a capital raise follows last weeks successful release of preliminary data on the Phase II post-resection liver cancer trial of PI-88. The level of interest we attracted both in terms of having the private placement underwritten and institutional investor demand is particularly encouraging and demonstrates the market’s positive support for our Phase III development plans. This capital raise is essential to our ability to meet our timeline objectives to starting the PI-88 Phase 3 trial around the middle of 2007.”

The additional capital will be used to fund time critical aspects of the imminent Phase III trial of Progen's lead compound, PI-88, for the treatment of patients with liver cancer who have undergone surgery including engaging an international contract research organisation, expanding our clinical development team, manufacture of Phase III material, activating our Phase III clinical advisory team, submitting Phase III trial protocols for regulatory approvals and recruiting trial sites.

Stephen Chang, Executive Chairman, said, “The Board is very much aware of the continuing support from our shareholders who hold NASDAQ listed stock. Unfortunately, due to US SEC securities laws, it is not possible to include in this SPP shareholders with non-Australian or New Zealand registered addresses. We will do our best to include our NASDAQ shareholders in any future capital raise. We limited the amount raised in this round in part because of this.”

Key dates for the SPP:

18 December 2006	Record date for the SPP
22 December 2006	SPP application despatched
22 December 2006	SPP offer opens
25 January 2007	SPP offer closes
5 February 2007	Allocation under SPP
5 February 2007	SPP shares quoted on ASX

Mr Justus Homburg will be attending the annual JP Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco in January 2007. The Company considers attendance at this and other such events to be invaluable in further raising the international awareness of PI-88.

About Progen: Progen Industries Limited is an Australian based globally focused biotechnology company committed to the discovery, development and commercialisation of small molecule pharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer and other serious diseases.

• Clinical Development - via a focused clinical trial programme involving its two compounds PI-88 and PI-166.
• Drug Discovery - projects focusing on the development of potent, selective inhibitors of carbohydrate-protein interactions, which are implicated in many disease processes.
• Commercial Services - manufacturing biopharmaceutical products to global standards
  
  

Keywords - Progen, PI-88, liver cancer, underwritten private placement, share purchase plan

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