Letter to Shareholders and Corporate Update
Letter to Shareholders
and Corporate Update
Liege, Belgium, 11 September 2023 – 7:30
CEST – Mithra (Euronext Brussels: MITRA), a company
dedicated to Women’s Health, (the “Company” or “Mithra”), today
published a Letter to Shareholders and Corporate Update from Chief
Executive Officer, Dr. David Horn Solomon.
Dear Fellow Shareholders
I have now been CEO of Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA
for five months, which makes this a natural point to look back with
you at the progress we have made so far. I want to summarize our
recent accomplishments and share what we are working on now and
what we still need to do.
As you will have seen, we recently made a number
of announcements documenting the execution of our strategy, which
we first laid out for you in May, and encouraging step-wise
progress since then.
- We raised EUR 20
million in a successful equity financing, with potential for up to
an additional EUR 45 million in equity. This is an important
demonstration of our ability to raise finance during turbulent
market conditions and our commitment to transition away from debt
financings.
- We signed a
supply agreement for production of the active pharmaceutical
ingredient (API) Estetrol (E4) native estrogen, deepening our
relationship with Gedeon Richter, our European marketing partner
for Estelle® and Donesta®. This
also will bring savings on cost of manufacturing, significantly
improving future profitability for Mithra.
- We received a
EUR 1.25 million milestone payment from Fuji Pharma, marking
important progress in Estelle’s development in Japan.
- We signed a new
Canadian licensing deal for Donesta® with
Searchlight Pharma, worth up to EUR 17.05 million in licensing and
milestone payments plus tiered double-digit royalties.
- We generated
about EUR 10 million in cash for operations from our sale of about
half of our shares of Mayne Pharma, our U.S. marketing partner for
Estelle, where we remain approximately a 5% shareholder.
- We announced
positive preclinical data on a highly innovative novel therapeutic
candidate for triple negative breast cancer.
- We secured
access to EUR 12.5 million in financing from Highbridge and
Whitebox under the loan facility, which was also amended to better
align their interests with our shareholders’.
I hope that you will agree that these
achievements are significant and consistent with the strategy we
set forth in our shareholder letter in May. Our focus is on
execution and transparency.
Our strategy remains to leverage the two main
pillars to our business: the industry-leading research and
development organization based here in Liege, Belgium; and our
innovative products, the highly differentiated contraceptive,
Estelle®, and the exciting therapeutic-candidate for symptoms of
menopause, Donesta®. At the same time, we are actively evaluating
the best strategic alternatives for two other non-core businesses
owned by Mithra: Novalon, our growing complex therapeutics
business, and our state-of-the-art contract development and
manufacturing organization (CDMO).
As they have during the past months, Mithra’s
businesses will continue to provide access to capital and afford us
opportunities to pursue the goals supported by our investors. The
most recent financing enables us to enhance our vigorous commercial
activities to grow sales of Estelle® globally and fund completion
of the marketing authorization application for Donesta® in the
U.S.
We can now also continue investing strongly in
Donesta®, to further expand on its market potential. We aim to
differentiate it in the treatment of menopause symptoms, and to
demonstrate clinically that its potential benefits extend to other
valuable aspects of women’s health and well-being. We also are
evaluating initiation of clinical development in new and valuable
additional indications for Estetrol®, such as its potential benefit
for improving implantation rates during In Vitro Fertilization. A
portion of the proceeds has been reserved to support growing our
pipeline to include new innovative medicines for women’s health,
through internal discovery and/or additional in-licensing.
In summary, the financing was an important step
in restoring our balance sheet and another step in our move away
from dilutive debt financings towards sources for operating
capital, like partnering and equity financing, that create
alignment amongst shareholders to support long-term value
creation.
Women’s health has traditionally been supported
by generic or repurposed medicines, or devices. We believe that
there is market demand and great opportunity in bringing innovation
back to this therapeutic area, to provide the benefits of impactful
new medicines to women of all ages.
To take full advantage of these opportunities,
alone or in partnership, we must continue to strengthen Mithra
financially. To this end, we have appointed advisors to work
vigorously on continuing the restructuring the company’s debt. Our
aim is to rapidly rationalize the capital structure and make it
more compatible with the exacting criteria of our current
supportive investors, as well as the most respected institutional
specialist investors in the U.S. and around the world.
Mithra’s executive leadership is working closely
and in lock-step with our Board of Directors to execute on our
strategy. While pleased with recent progress, we are not complacent
and feel great urgency to continue to “right the ship” and
successfully return to smooth sailing together with our loyal
shareholders, to whom we are most grateful. It is gratifying to
look back on what we have achieved in a relatively short period of
time – and exciting to consider what is to come.
With best regards,
David Horn Solomon
Chief Executive Officer
For more information, please
contact:
Mithra Pharmaceuticals SADavid Horn SolomonChief
Executive Officerinvestorrelations@mithra.com |
Investor &
media relationsChris MaggosCohesion
Bureauchris.maggos@cohesionbureau.com +41 79 367 6254 |
About Mithra
Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA (Euronext: MITRA) is a
Belgian biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming Women’s
Health by offering new choices through innovation, with a
particular focus on contraception and menopause. Mithra’s goal is
to develop products offering better efficacy, safety and
convenience, meeting women’s needs throughout their life span.
Mithra explores the potential of the unique native estrogen
estetrol in a wide range of applications in women health and
beyond. After having successfully launched the first estetrol-based
product in 2021, the contraceptive pill Estelle®, Mithra is now
focusing on its second product Donesta®, the next-generation
hormone therapy. Mithra also offers partners a complete spectrum of
solutions from early drug development, clinical batches and
commercial manufacturing of complex polymeric products (vaginal
ring, implants) and complex liquid injectables and biologicals
(vials, pre-filled syringes or cartridges) at its technological
platform Mithra CDMO. Active in more than 100 countries around the
world, is headquartered in Liège, Belgium. www.mithra.com
ESTELLE® and DONESTA® are registered trademarks
of Mithra Pharmaceuticals or one of its affiliates.
Important information
The contents of this announcement include
statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking
statements". These forward-looking statements can be identified by
the use of forward-looking terminology, including the words
"believes", "estimates," "anticipates", "expects", "intends",
"may", "will", "plans", "continue", "ongoing", "potential",
"predict", "project", "target", "seek" or "should", and include
statements the Company makes concerning the intended results of its
strategy. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks
and uncertainties and readers are cautioned that any such
forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future
performance. The Company's actual results may differ materially
from those predicted by the forward-looking statements. The Company
undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise
forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law.
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- 2023-09-11_Mithra_CEOLetter_ENG final
- 2023-09-11_Mithra_CEOLetter_FR Final
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