NEW YORK: Is a pharmaceutical company whose biggest-selling drug is considered as dangerous as heroin or LSD a good investment?

Jazz Pharmaceuticals, along with the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and some of Wall Streets most prestigious investment banks, is hoping investors think so.

Jazz, based in Palo Alto, California, has filed to sell as much as $180 million in stock Thursday. Its main product is gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, a fast-acting anesthetic with a history of use in date rape and serious risks of overdose, including coma and death. Jazz sells it under the brand name Xyrem to treat narcolepsy.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration lists GHB as a Schedule I drug, the most dangerous kind, in the same category as heroin. But the Food Drug Administration has approved Xyrem for narcolepsy, and when dispensed by prescription the drug can be used legally.

The European Commission has approved Xyrem for the treatment of narcolepsy with cataplexy in adult patients.

Because of its risks, Xyrem can be distributed only under very strict rules, and Jazzs promotion of it is currently the subject of a U.S. criminal case in New York that has resulted in one felony guilty plea by a former Jazz employee. The narcolepsy market is small, and Xyrems sales were just $29 million in 2006.

Meanwhile, Jazz posted a loss of $82 million last year and has lost almost $200 million since it was founded in 2003. Its auditors have warned that its losses raise “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern,” according to the offering prospectus Jazz filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In plain English, Jazz, which had $67 million in cash as of March 31, is running out of money, and if it does not get more it could go broke as early as the end of this year.

Jazz is hoping to solve that problem by selling as much as 6.9 million shares to the public at $24 to $26 a share. The offering, which values Jazz at about $600 million, could be completed as early as Thursday. Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse are leading the deal.

Aside from Jazz itself, the biggest winner in the public offering would be Kohlberg Kravis and other private equity firms. Since 2003, they have sunk $265 million into Jazz. If the company cannot go public, they will have to choose between putting more money up or potentially losing their entire investment.

Matt Fust, Jazzs chief financial officer, declined to comment about the offering or Jazzs prospects. A spokeswoman for Kohlberg said the firm could not comment because the offering was imminent.

Jazz hopes to vastly expand Xyrems potential market by winning approval to promote it for fibromyalgia, a vague and poorly understood pain disorder whose symptoms are often treated with antidepressants. Jazz is conducting two late-stage clinical trials to prove that Xyrem reduces the pain of fibromyalgia, with results expected in the one trial in the second half of 2008.

In an earlier trial, about 30 percent of people who took Xyrem reported improvement in their fibromyalgia symptoms, compared to 13 percent on placebo. Whether that figure will be enough to convince regulators to approve Xyrem, whose label warns that abuse of GHB can cause “seizures, respiratory depression and profound decreases in level of consciousness,” is not clear.

In addition, much bigger drug companies, including Pfizer and Forest Laboratories, are also researching fibromyalgia treatments and have medicines further along in development. Meanwhile, Jazz is still trying to finalize a settlement in the criminal case in New York.

Many gardeners, even experienced ones, are intimidated by the idea of taking cuttings. Yet it’s such fun, as well as a great way to save money.

Most cuttings are taken from stems. These fall into categories according to the ripeness of the stem throughout the growing year - from softwood, greenwood, semi-ripe, ripe through to hardwood. At this time of year, you’ll be taking softwood cuttings of tender perennials that might not survive the winter, as well as of some shrubs.

Here’s how to do it. The softer the cutting, the quicker it will wilt, but the faster it will root. Bottom heat from a propagator also speeds up the rooting process.

Cuttings with leaves will lose moisture, so spray with water until they have rooted. Some people put a “tent” over cuttings - this need be no more hi-tech than a polythene bag propped up with wire and secured with a rubber band - and they should then be checked regularly for signs of rotting.

For your cutting, choose the youngest, freshest material you can find, because this roots fastest. It should be a few inches long, with three or four leaves, or nodes, on the stem. Most cuttings are taken by severing a stem underneath a bud. I nip out the growing tip to encourage side growth.

Next, strip the bottom leaves and plunge the cuttings up to the lowest remaining leaf around the edge of a pot filled with gritty compost (one handful of grit to two of proprietary compost). Clay pots are best because they help root formation. After a few weeks, roots should form - a good indication is when leaves and shoots appear. At this point, tip out the cuttings and pot individually.

Taking cuttings of plants that may not overwinter is the best way of maintaining and increasing your stock. Among the most rewarding are the large-flowered penstemon cultivars P. ‘Thorn’ (white with a pink flush) and ‘Alice Hindley’ (lavender and white). Daisies such as argyranthemums, osteospermum and gazanias will root readily at this time of year, while many shrubs, such as philadelphus, viburnums and deutzias, are making new growth now and will yield perfect material.

Try it, and you’ll see just how easy it really is.

KHARTOUM, Sudan—Business leaders here are predicting that new U.S. sanctions imposed because of violence in Sudan’s region will have little effect on the country’s booming oil-driven economy, mostly because the measures avoid targeting key Chinese interests.

Last year, Sudan’s economy grew by 12 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. That growth was propelled by the estimated 500,000 barrels of oil produced each day ? two-thirds of them bought by China.

The U.S. sanctions announced last week target 31 Sudanese firms and three individuals, including a rebel leader linked to the bloodshed in the Darfur region. More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes in Darfur during four years of fighting between Sudanese forces and rebels.

The newly sanctioned companies join 132 other Sudanese firms already banned from doing business with any U.S. company or bank.

Abdul Rahim Hamdi, a former Sudanese finance minister who advises the government on economic matters, noted that only Sudanese oil-drilling companies are on the new sanctions list, not Chinese or other foreign corporations ? some of which pay huge royalties to Sudan’s government.

“The Chinese companies are the only big players, but the Americans have carefully avoided targeting them,” Hamdi said.

Besides, after a decade of sanctions, Sudan has few commercial ties to the United States. Nearly three-quarters of Sudan’s trade is with Arab and Asian nations, Hamdi said.

U.S. authorities have defended the new measures, saying they not only broaden the target list but also provide better methods to track down embargo evaders.

“Tougher new enforcement techniques,” including “forensic accounting” have been used to select the newly targeted companies and to make sure all 163 now on the sanctions list are truly barred from the dollar economy, U.S. embassy spokesman Joel Maybury said.

U.S. officials also dispute the idea that they are leery of disrupting Chinese relations over Darfur. “We can very definitely say that the issue of Sudan is on the United States-China bilateral agenda,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said last week.

Sudanese firms facing U.S. sanctions include most state-owned or state-controlled companies, ranging from oil drilling and transport firms to insurance companies.

The U.S. measures and the violence in Darfur are likely topics of discussion when the Group of Eight industrialized countries meet this week at a summit in Germany.

President Bush has directed American officials to meet with allies to try to draft a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would impose multilateral pressure on Sudan, in addition to the unilateral actions by the U.S.

But China, which holds veto power in the Security Council, has urged negotiations with Sudan rather than sanctions.

For now, the only Sudanese company that truly risks being affected by the U.S. measures, Hamdi contends, is Sudatel, Sudan’s largest cell phone provider, because it is listed on the stock exchange in the United Arab Emirates and is largely owned by foreign investors. Sudatel executives could not be reached for comment.

Sudanese businesses have long adjusted to U.S. sanctions, business leaders said.

A prominent Khartoum financier, who asked not be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Sudanese firms know how to avoid dollar transactions by using the euro instead.

Sudanese firms operate through foreign holding companies or joint ventures to evade restrictions, the financier said.

Analysts like Alex Vines, the head of the Africa program at the British think tank Chatham House, also predicted the U.S. sanctions will have little actual effect on Sudan’s economy.

“It’s more of a political signal,” Vines said.