VITARINE'S INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING IS POSTPONED

VITARINE'S INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING IS POSTPONED pending completion of FDA's inspection of the company's St. Croix, Virgin Islands manufacturing facility. "The postponement was requested by the company in order to enable senior management to clarify issues that have arisen in connection with the accuracy of certain documents relating to a product application at its St. Croix plant," Vitarine said in a recent statement. Vitarine's facility in St. Croix is under active investigation by FDA, according to the agency. Reportedly, the company does not have any generic antibiotic applications pending at FDA that could be held up by the investigation. According to Vitarine's recent prospectus, a Virgin Islands subsidiary "owns two buildings aggregating approximately 20,000 square feet located in St. Croix." The filing notes that "since April 1987, one building has been used solely for the purpose of manufacturing cephalosporins [and] since 1987, the company has spent approximately $123,000 in improving the second building to be available for the manufacture of other products." The document adds that production of the "other products" began in September 1988. Vitarine hopes to raise between $18.7 mil. and $22.1 mil. from the 1.7 mil. share initial public offering, based on an offering price of between $11 and $13 a share. Proceeds from the offering will go towards eliminating debt taken on during Vitarine's acquisition of six regional generic drug distributors last year. The distributors were purchased at a total price of $53.4 mil.