Pharming's bumper harvest

Pharming Holding N.V.(EASDAQ:PHAR)has added weight to the argument that continental European markets are not in synch with either the North American or London markets. Although the biotech financing windows look closed in London and New York, Pharming raised $61.5 million as it debuted on EASDAQ, at the top end of expectations, last Thursday. Even more remarkable, the offering was more than 10 times oversubscribed.

As expected, about one quarter of the offering was taken up by retail investors predominantly in the Netherlands and Belgium. Before the offering, executives at the transgenics company confided to Ebb & Flow that they expected the state of the institutional markets in the U.S. and U.K. would make it tough to win significant amounts of orders. But the company should be pleasantly surprised, as it looks like U.S. and U.K. institutions each will own about 10 percent of the stock...