Addex Therapeutics raising £41m to advance drug candidates
Updated : 08:22
Oral allosteric modulators developer Addex Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it was seeking shareholder approval to increase its share capital by issuing up to 12,779,553 new shares at a price of CHF3.13.
The Swiss company said each new share would also receive a seven-year warrant to purchase 0.45 of a share at a price of CHF3.43.
It said the gross proceeds, of up to CHF 40m (£30.78m) net of certain costs and expenses associated with the placement, would be used to advance its portfolio of drug candidates, including registration studies for its lead program - dipraglurant - for levodopa-induced dyskinesia associated with Parkinson's disease (PD-LID).
Of the CHF 40m placement, CHF 30m had been committed by New Enterprise Associates, New Leaf Venture Partners, CAM Capital and clients of Herculis Partners and Semper Finance Group.
The remaining CHF 10m of the offering were planned to be placed through a book building process starting on Thursday.
“Launching this CHF40 million fundraising with commitments in place from several world-leading healthcare investors is a pivotal step in the continued progress made recently at Addex,” said CEO Tim Dyer.
“It provides the financial flexibility to deliver not only on late-stage product development, but clearly sets us firmly on the path to a US listing.”
Dyer explained that the “significant” cash injection would allow the company to quickly advance its lead product, dipraglurant, into pivotal registration studies for PD-LID.
“In addition, we intend to advance the rest of our portfolio of proprietary allosteric modulators to key value inflection points.”
The share offering would be conducted as a private placement of shares and warrant shares in Switzerland and abroad to qualified institutional investors, subject to certain limitations based on residency in compliance with applicable securities laws.
Addex said its shareholders meeting to approve the capital increase was expected to be held on or around 21 March, and the first trading day of the newly-issued shares was expected to be on or around 28 March.