The old adage 'make hay while the sun shines' appears to be firmly rooted in the minds of the management team of Hemispherx Biopharma, which today announced a second stock offering in less than 10 days. The latest one will see the group raise up to $16m by selling almost 12m shares and warrants to two institutional investors. Last week, the group raised $18.3m with another sale of stocks and warrants to two institutional investors, who could be the same ones behind today’s news.

But while the investment has added valuable money to Hemispherx’s coffers, which had been looking rather bare with only $6m, news of yet another fundraising has sent the shares down by 22% today. Prior to this point Hemispherx stock had been on a roll, rising four fold in the last four weeks, as investors had been scrabbling to get on board ahead of the approaching May, 25, PDUFA date for its lead candidate, Ampligen, in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).