LONDON, Sept. 30,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- e-therapeutics plc (AIM: ETX)
(OTC-QX: ETXPF), a company integrating computational power and
biological data to discover life-transforming RNAi medicines, is
pleased to announce a fundraise of £13.5 million before expenses by
way of a subscription for new ordinary shares of 0.1p each
("Ordinary Shares") in the Company (the "Subscription") at a price
of 20p per Ordinary Share by funds managed by M&G Investment
Management Limited ("M&G"), an institutional investor and an
existing shareholder of the Company.
The fundraise provides ETX with the opportunity to generate
value and accelerate the next stage of its growth, advancing the
Company's position in creating an entirely new template for drug
discovery using computation to capture and model disease
complexity, identify novel targets and design RNAi drugs against
those targets that can be rapidly progressed to the
clinic.
The net proceeds of the Subscription will be used to facilitate
a number of initiatives to accelerate growth, with a focus on
expanding the Company's in-house pipeline of first-in-class RNAi
candidates derived from ETX's computational platform; further
developing cell type-specific computational tools and datasets; and
general working capital including additional headcount.
Ali Mortazavi, Chief Executive
Officer of e-therapeutics, commented:
"I am pleased to announce the fundraise of £13.5 million and
excited by the prospect of being able to accelerate the development
of our in-house RNAi pipeline through enhanced investment in our
therapeutic programmes, hepatocyte datasets and computational
capabilities. This successful fundraise underlines ETX's
position at the intersection of computational approaches to
drug discovery and genetic medicine, using RNA interference as our
drug modality of choice. We are grateful for the support of
our shareholders and look forward to delivering value from our
platform technologies."
Michael Stiasny, Head of UK
Equities at M&G Investments, commented:
"With the potential to re-shape the conventional drug
discovery model, siRNA based therapies represent an extremely
exciting new modality in medicine. We believe that e-therapeutics
has a unique platform and strategically attractive IP in this
space, combined with a strong computational edge, and are delighted
to be increasing our long-term support for the Company."
The issue of new Ordinary Shares pursuant to the Subscription
will be conditional on (i) the 67,500,000 shares ("Subscription
Shares") being admitted to trading on AIM by not later than
8.00 a.m. on 6
October 2022, or such later time and/or date as the Company
may agree (being not later than 8.00
a.m. on 14 October 2022) and
(ii) the representations and warranties of the Company under the
Subscription being true and accurate.
Highlights of the Fundraise
- A total fundraise of £13.5 million before expenses, through the
issue of the Subscription Shares at a price of 20p per Ordinary
Share (the "Subscription Price"), equating to approximately 13.12%
of the existing ordinary share capital
- The Subscription Price represents a premium of approximately
12% to the closing middle market price of 17.825p per Ordinary
Share on 29 September 2022, being the
latest practicable date prior to the date and time of this
announcement
- The net proceeds of the Subscription will be used to facilitate
a number of initiatives, with a focus on expanding the Company's
proprietary drug discovery and development platform capabilities
and pipeline of computationally driven first-in-class RNAi
medicines
- The issue of the Subscription Shares pursuant to the
Subscription will be conditional on (i) the Subscription
Shares being admitted to trading on AIM by not later than 8.00
a.m. on 6 October 2022,
or such later time and/or date as the Company may agree (being not
later than 8.00 a.m. 14 October
2022) and (ii) the representations and warranties of the
Company under the Subscription being true and accurate
- M&G has the right to nominate a non-executive
director to the board of ETX if it so wishes for
so long as M&G holds the higher of at least
58,000,000 shares of the Company or 5% of the existing issued share
Capital of the Company from time to time
Company Overview
The latest information on the Company and its recent progress is
included in its Interim Report for the 6 months to 31 July 2022 which is also being announced
today.
ETX is a UK-based company integrating computational power and
biology information to discover life-transforming RNAi
medicines. The Company's technology uses computation
to capture and model human biology, identify novel targets and
design RNAi medicines against those targets that can be rapidly
progressed to the clinic.
ETX's proprietary Computational Biology Platform enables the
generation and analysis of biological network models,
providing a novel and mechanistic approach to drug discovery
that explicitly considers the true complexity of biology and makes
more reliable predictions from large complex data sets and ETX's
proprietary hepatocyte knowledge base, - the world's most
comprehensive and integrated hepatocyte-centric data and
information resource. The Company generates, prioritises and tests
millions of hypotheses in silico to identify better
therapeutic targets with higher confidence.
ETX's proprietary RNAi Platform enables the targeted delivery to
hepatocytes in the liver and the specific silencing of novel
disease-associated genes, identified by ETX's Computational Biology
Platform. The focus on hepatocytes offers the opportunity to work
across a wide variety of diseases. The liver is a highly
metabolically active organ which performs a key role in many
biological processes and vital functions crucial for human health.
ETX's GalNAc-siRNA constructs have demonstrated compelling
in vivo performance in terms of depth of gene silencing and
duration of action.
ETX is progressing a pipeline of first-in-class
pre-clinical RNAi candidates in several therapeutic areas including
haematology, cardiovascular disease and non-alcoholic
steatohepatitis ("NASH"). ETX has also partnered with biopharma
companies such as Novo Nordisk, Galapagos NV and iTeos
Therapeutics using its computational network biology approach
across a diverse range of drug discovery projects.
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SOURCE e-therapeutics