August 6, 2010 (FinancialWire) (Go to http://www.financialwire.net/?s=ftrdnwswnd for all of today’s featured news.) — Alexza Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALXA) said that it has entered into definitive agreements with a group of institutional investors to raise around $18 million in gross proceeds in a registered direct offering through the sale of common stock and warrants.

Alexza agreed to sell a total of 6,685,183 units, each unit consisting of one share of common stock and one warrant to purchase 0.5 of a share of common stock, at a purchase price of $2.70 per unit.

The warrants will be exercisable six months after issuance at $3.30 per share and will expire five years from the date of issuance. The shares of common stock and warrants are immediately separable and will be issued separately.

Alexza estimates that net proceeds from the offering will be around $16.4 million.

The company plans to use the net proceeds from the sale of the securities primarily for general corporate purposes, including clinical trial, research and development, general and administrative and manufacturing expenses.

California-based Alexza is a pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of novel, proprietary products for the acute treatment of central nervous system conditions.

Alexza's technology, the Staccato system, vaporizes unformulated drug to form a condensation aerosol that, when inhaled, allows for rapid systemic drug delivery through deep lung inhalation.

The drug is quickly absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream, providing speed of therapeutic onset that is comparable to intravenous administration, but with greater ease, patient comfort and convenience.

AZ-004 (Staccato loxapine) is Alexza's lead program, which is being developed for the rapid treatment of agitation in schizophrenic or bipolar disorder patients.

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