Issue of Equity
March 05 2010 - 6:21AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMMEDG
RNS Number : 1544I
Medgenics Inc
05 March 2010
For release: 5 March 2010
Medgenics, Inc.
('Medgenics' or the 'Company')
MEDGENICS SUCCESSFULLY CLOSES ADDITIONAL FINANCING ROUND
Medgenics (AIM: MEDG and MEDU), the company that is developing a novel approach
to the manufacture and delivery of therapeutic proteins continuously in patients
using their own tissue, is pleased to announce that it has successfully closed
an additional round of financing, raising gross proceeds of GBP726,168. Pursuant
to a board resolution passed today, the Company has allotted and issued
(credited as fully paid), conditional upon admission to trading on AIM:
? 14,273,000 new common shares of par value of US $0.0001 each in the Company
("Common Shares") at a price of 5 pence per Common Share; and
? a further 192,591 Common Shares at a price of 6.5 pence per Common Share to
certain of the directors and their related parties, as announced on 8 February
2010.
Application will be made by the Company for these Common Shares to be admitted
to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence at 8am on 11 March 2010.
Following the admission to trading on AIM of these 14,465,591 new Common Shares,
the total number of Common Shares in issue will be 137,914,618*. The resultant
directors' interests* and significant shareholdings* will be as follows
(excluding interests in warrants, options and debentures as previously
announced):
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Name | Number of | % of |
| | Common | Issued |
| | Shares | Share |
| | | Capital* |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| The Executors of Lord Leonard | 18,509,725 | 13.4% |
| Steinberg's estate | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Joel Kanter (director) | 14,126,635 | 10.2% |
| including related interests | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| CIBC Trust Company (Bahamas) | 7,605,985 | 5.5% |
| Ltd. ** | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Alta California Partners III | 7,412,472 | 5.4% |
| L.P. | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Platinum Montaur Life Sciences | 7,190,208 | 5.2% |
| I, LLC | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Vision Opportunity Master Fund | 7,094,851 | 5.1% |
| Ltd. | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Koor Corporate Venture | 5,393,821 | 3.9% |
| Capital, L.P. | | |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| UK Private Healthcare Limited | 5,000,000 | 3.6% |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Chicago Investments Inc. ** | 4,400,807 | 3.2% |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Andrew Pearlman (director) | 1,235,019 | 0.9% |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| Eugene Bauer (director) | 143,832 | 0.1% |
+--------------------------------+--------------+------------+
The percentage of Common Shares not in public hands will be 25.9%*
Note
* Excluding any Common Shares issued pursuant to the block admission between 4
December 2009 and the date of this announcement.
** Included within the interests of Joel Kanter, a director of the Company
The directors believe that these additional funds will enable the Company to
start the recruitment and treatment of further patients under its ongoing phase
I/II anaemia trial and to further develop partnering initiatives in relation to
its key current and proposed product candidates.
The Company now plans to use the proceeds from this successful fund raising to
resume its current anaemia trial in higher dose groups, starting in the second
quarter of 2010, using EPODURE Biopumps producing the therapeutic protein
erythropoietin (EPO), which is the standard injected protein for treatment of
anaemia with a US$12bn value global market. This follows the recent
announcement of the Company's first significant pre-clinical development and
option agreement with a major international biopharmaceutical company to apply
the Company's core Biopump tissue technology to treat a different major chronic
disease, haemophilia, under which the Company has already received $2.6million
and expects to receive a further $1.4million by the end of 2010. The Company
also expects to receive a further $1.3m of financial support during 2010 from
the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist and the directors are confident that
these non-dilutive sources of finance will cover a significant portion of the
Company's 2010 anticipated expenditure.
So far, seven patients have been treated in the phase I/II fixed-dose anaemia
trial using a single administration of the EPODURE Biopumps. This single
treatment is intended to replace months of frequent EPO injections now used in
standard practice. To date six patients have received EPODURE Biopumps producing
EPO at the lowest recommended dosage and one patient has received EPODURE
Biopumps producing EPO at the next dosing level. EPO was successfully delivered
by the treatment in all seven patients, with even the lowest dose causing the
levels of haemoglobin in most patients to be sustained for months within the
target range without any EPO injections. In one patient the haemoglobin level
has been stabilised in the range for more that 16 months without requiring any
of the weekly EPO injections he had received for more than a year prior to
EPODURE treatment. Patients have found the treatment satisfactory and there
have been no adverse events reported. The Company has now included some more
detailed data on these trials on its website which can be found at
www.medgenics.com.
In the continuation of this trial, additional patients will be treated using
higher fixed dosage levels. This will be accomplished by administering more
EPODURE Biopumps, titrated to deliver higher daily levels of EPO than with the
first patients in the trial. This is designed to show dose response for EPODURE
in a similar manner to that known for injected EPO, where higher doses result in
statistically higher haemoglobin levels, even though dosage response and
requirements vary from patient to patient. The treatment of additional patients
in the trial is expected to provide substantially more data to further
corroborate the strong results to date, and to show that this positive
therapeutic effect will occur for 6 months or longer.
As this is an open trial, the Company anticipates that it will continue to
provide updates as patients are treated and followed throughout 2010. The
Company further anticipates additional licensing activity and new programs in
the product pipeline during 2010.
Andrew Pearlman, CEO of Medgenics, commented:
"We have already reported that our tissue based Biopump technology produces and
delivers therapeutic proteins continuously over many months and in a more
natural manner than serial injections. This trial has shown exciting and
unprecedented clinical results in treating anaemic patients with EPODURE
Biopumps, which continuously produce EPO. We now aim to demonstrate that higher
doses of EPODURE result in higher haemoglobin levels.
With these additional funds we can now proceed to recruit and treat patients at
higher doses in this trial. This will also give us important information to help
us develop ways to titrate the dose to meet individual needs of the patient in
future clinical use.
Furthermore, the recent agreement with a major pharmaceutical company for
haemophilia, as well as other active partnering interest, endorses the Board's
view that the Company's Biopump has many potential commercially exploitable
applications.
We believe that the Biopump, once fully developed, will represent the ultimate
in personalised medicine, offering a new and cost effective way to both
manufacture and deliver therapeutic proteins directly in the patient on an
extended basis and thus provide a better and safer protein therapy compared to
serial injections and other alternatives and we look forward to updating the
market with further positive news throughout 2010."
For further information, please contact:
Andrew Pearlman + 972 4 902 8900
CEO
Medgenics, Inc
Mike Wort / Anna Dunphy + 44 207 861 3838
De Facto Communications
James Pinner / Derek Crowhurst +44 207 444 0800
Blomfield Corporate Finance
Ian Callaway / Alex Mattey +44 207 638 5600
SVS Securities plc
Notes to Editors:
About Medgenics:
Medgenics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical Company developing its unique
tissue-based Biopump platform technology to provide sustained-action protein
therapy for the treatment of a range of chronic diseases. Biopumps are made
using needle biopsies taken from the lower layer of the patient's skin under
local anaesthetic, and processed during 10-14 days to become 30 mm long tissue
biofactories producing the required protein. The requisite number of Biopumps
are injected under the patient's skin to provide sustained protein production
and delivery for many months. The Company is developing the Biopump to provide
substantially greater safety and reliability in protein treatment in a more cost
effective manner than experienced with the existing injected protein therapies.
Medgenics currently has three products in development based on this technology
and addressing the indications of:
- Anaemia - using EPODURE, a Biopump producing erythropoietin (EPO)
- Hepatitis-C - using INFRADURE - a Biopump producing interferon-alpha (IFN-a)
- Haemophilia - using a Biopump to produce clotting Factor VIII
The Company's Phase I/II clinical trial using EPODURE to treat anaemia in
patients with chronic kidney disease, has demonstrated proof of concept of the
Biopump. Designed to produce and deliver a therapeutic dose of EPO steadily for
six months or more, EPODURE Biopumps have already provided effective anaemia
treatment in most of these patients for 6-12 months, even at the low
administered dose.
Medgenics intends to develop its innovative products and bring them to market
via multiple strategic partnerships with major pharmaceutical and/or medical
device companies. In addition to treatments for Anaemia, Hepatitis-C, and
Haemophilia, Medgenics plans to develop and/or out-license a pipeline of future
Biopump products targeting the large and rapidly growing global protein therapy
market, which is forecast to reach US $87 billion by 2010. Other potential
applications of Biopumps producing various proteins include multiple sclerosis,
arthritis, pediatric growth hormone deficiency, obesity, and diabetes.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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