SiliconBeat

Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a Palo Alto drug development company, registered plans Friday with the SEC for an initial public offering of its stock, initially estimated to raise $57.5 million.

The company is led by David Perry, who founded Chemdex in 1997 when he was barely 30. Chemdex was a shooting star among the hot sector of so-called business-to-business Internet stocks in the late 90s. It created an electronic marketplace where scientists and others could purchase chemicals and lab equipment.

Chemdex shares soared 70 percent on their first day of trading in July 1999. Its stock
price skyrocketed more than another 800 percent in early 2000 only to see it lose more than 99 percent of its value by the end of the year in the wake of the dot.com bust.

Perry stepped down as chief executive in November 2001 and the company eventually changed its name to Nexprise when it got out of the business-to-business marketplaces and started developing collaborative software.

Perry’s latest venture, Anacor, is developing products to treat fungal, bacterial and
inflammatory diseases using Boron-based compounds, which the company says interact some with some biological targets to provide treatments for condition that haven’t been helped as much by traditional, carbon-based compounds.

Among its drug candidates are treatments for those nasty fungal infections of the nail
and nail bed; an anti-inflammatory treatment of psoriasis; and a topical treatment for yeast infections and athlete’s foot.

Through June 30 the company has burned through $48.4 million of other people’s money, namely its venture investors who include Rho Ventures, Venrock Associates, Care Capital Investments and Aberdare Ventures.

Anacor’s IPO filing was the second one of the week for local companies. The day before
Aryx Therapeutics of Fremont filed its intentions to sell shares to the public for the first
time in an offer initially estimated to raise $86.3 million.

Aryx is developing products designed to eliminate side effects of currently successful
commercial drugs. In June 2006 the company partnered with Proctor & Gamble Pharmaceuticals to develop a drug treating gastroesophageal reflux disease and symptoms associated with upper abdominal discomfort. P&G paid that company an upfront license fee of $25 million and has agreed to make future milestone payments.

Aryx has racked up more than $107 million in losses since its founding in 1997.