NanoViricides raises $5M in shelf offering
NanoViricides, a West Haven, Conn.-based development stage company that creates special purpose nanomaterials for antiviral therapy, has raised $5 million drawing down on its previously announced universal registered shelf “Form S-3” offering. The registered shelf offering became effective on April 29, 2010, and continues to remain effective.
This new investment enables the company to retain more than 24 months of current operating expenses as cash in hand. This strengthened financial position will allow NanoViricides to defray certain additional testing costs for its anti-influenza drug candidate leading to an IND application, and to support the budgeted costs of certain additional equipment needed for production of the future clinical batches of its drug candidates.
NanoViricides received this financing from a single investor, Seaside 88, a Florida limited partnership. Seaside has previously financed NanoViricides with a total of approximately $20 million under somewhat different terms.
On June 28, 2012, NanoViricides received $2.5 million upon closing, with a net of approximately $2.32 million after deducting brokerage commission and expenses. NanoViricides has entered into a securities purchase agreement with Seaside for the purchase and sale of up to 5,000 shares of its newly created Series C Preferred Stock at the purchase price of $1,000 per share. Seaside purchased an initial 2,500 shares of the company’s Series C Preferred Stock at the purchase price of $1,000 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $2,500,000. A certain number of the preferred C shares will convert to common stock automatically every 14 days. The amount of common stock issued at each conversion will be equal to 15% of the average volume of common stock traded in the previous two weeks, plus common stock resulting from conversion of accrued dividend.
“Conversion based on trading volume provides a substantial amount of stability to the trading market,” said Eugene Seymour, CEO and CFO of NanoViricides. “It takes away the adverse price impact that could happen when a fixed dollar amount is converted every two weeks, which was the case with our Series B Preferred Stock.”
The first conversion of Series C Preferred shares to common stock took place on Thursday, June 28, 2012. Additional conversions will follow every fourteen days.
“We are pleased that Seaside has agreed to finance the company on terms that are substantially more favorable to the interests of our shareholders than in the past,” said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, president of NanoViricides. “This financing is very important for the company as we advance our influenza drug candidate towards IND stage and future human clinical trials. It will also help us to continue to move forward with all of the drug programs in our broad pipeline.”
NanoViricides has conducted a pre-IND meeting with the FDA for its clinical candidate for influenza, namely NV-INF-1, under its FluCide anti-influenza nanoviricides program in March, 2012. The company is currently working on the studies needed for an IND submission for this drug candidate. In addition, NanoViricides has also announced that it is working on enabling cGMP manufacture of its drug candidates for the future human clinical studies.