On January 17, 2019 Seneca Biopharma, Inc. (Nasdaq:SNCA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel treatments for various diseases of high unmet medical need, reported the agreement by several accredited investors to exercise certain warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 5,555,554 shares of common stock having an exercise price of $2.70 issued by the company on July 30, 2019, at a reduced exercise price of $1.36 per share, priced at-the-market under Nasdaq rules (Press release, Seneca Biopharma, JAN 17, 2020, View Source [SID1234553313]).

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The shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants are registered pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-232273) which became effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 25, 2019. The gross proceeds to the company from the exercise of the warrants are expected to be approximately $7.55 million, prior to deducting placement agent fees and estimated offering expenses.

H.C. Wainwright & Co. is acting as the exclusive placement agent for the offering.

In consideration for the immediate exercise of the warrants for cash, the exercising holders will receive new unregistered warrants to purchase shares of common stock in a private placement pursuant to Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act"). The warrants will be exercisable into an aggregate of up to 5,555,554 shares of common stock, at an exercise price of $1.23 per share, 2,777,777 of which have a term of exercise equal to two years and 2,777,777 of which have a term of exercise equal to five years.

Seneca intends to use the net proceeds from the offering as working capital for general business purposes, including continued development of SNCA’s stem cell assets and seeking partnership opportunities, as well as pursuing the in-licensing or acquisition of new innovative medicines to strengthen SNCA’s pipeline.

The new warrants described above were offered in a private placement pursuant to an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the 1933 Act and, along with the shares of common stock issuable upon their exercise, have not been registered under the 1933 Act, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration with the SEC or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. The securities were offered only to accredited investors. The company has agreed to file a registration statement with the SEC covering the resale of the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the new warrants.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

On January 17, 2020 The University of California, Riverside, reported that it has received a $2.2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health that will help researchers target critical oncogenes of the B-cell lymphoma 2, or Bcl-2, family of proteins that regulate all major mechanisms of cell death, or "apoptosis (Press release, The University of Southern California, JAN 17, 2020, View Source;ddo011620.php [SID1234553308])."

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The Bcl-2 family of proteins, which either promote or inhibit apoptosis, provide useful targets for drug discovery because they contribute to cancers when their expression and function are altered.

"We plan to explore new avenues to target the oncogenes Mcl-1 and Bfl-1 in this family," said Maurizio Pellecchia, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine and the principal investigator of the five-year grant. "These genes are expressed in most solid tumors, including those linked to melanoma and lung cancers. These genes render these cancers resistant to chemotherapy, radiation, or even immunotherapy."

While no viable pharmacological agents or drugs have been able to target Bfl-1 to date, a few have emerged to target only Mcl-1.

Pellecchia is optimistic the research project will present several innovative drug discovery approaches that are necessary to tackle challenging drug targets such as Mcl-1 and Bfl-1.

"Our studies suggest that Bfl-1 antagonists and/or dual action Mcl-1/Bfl-1 antagonists would hold great promise for novel apoptosis-based therapies in melanoma, lung cancer, and potentially other tumors," he said. "Therapeutic options for chemotherapy resistant cancers are limited. Our studies aim at addressing this critical unmet medical need."

Pellecchia’s team will focus on deriving novel, potent, and irreversible agents that target Bfl-1, and other agents that simultaneously target both Bfl-1 and Mcl-1.

"These are challenging goals, but our preliminary data give us hope and confidence that we may succeed due, in part, to innovative drug targeting approaches we have employed," he said.

John Jefferson Perry, an assistant professor of biochemistry and co-investigator, will receive a portion of the funds to perform crystallography studies on the most promising agents derived by the research team.

"We are excited to use protein crystallography analyses to help study these novel antagonists," Perry said. "Knowledge of the antagonists’ interaction with the target can be immensely helpful in these cancer-focused structure-based drug design studies."

The project will support two project scientists and two graduate students.

On January 16, 2020 Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLCM), a leader in developing novel, controllable cellular immunotherapies for cancers, reported that an abstract on new Phase 1 translational results for BPX-601, its lead GoCAR-T product candidate, has been accepted for poster presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (ASCO GI) (Press release, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, JAN 16, 2020, View Source [SID1234553311]). The meeting is being held January 23-25, 2020 in San Francisco.

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Details of the poster presentation are as follows:

Title: Tumor Infiltration and Cytokine Biomarkers of Prostate Stem Cell Antigen (PSCA)-Directed GoCAR-T Cells in Patients with Advanced Pancreatic Tumors
Poster Board: M1, Abstract 734
Presenter: Joanne Shaw, Ph.D.
Time/Location: Friday, January 24, 2020, 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. PT, Level 1, West Hall

On January 16, 2020 I-Mab ("I-Mab" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: IMAB), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company committed to the discovery, development and commercialization of novel or highly differentiated biologics to treat diseases with significant unmet medical needs, particularly cancers and autoimmune disorders, reported the pricing of its initial public offering of 7,407,400 American Depositary Shares ("ADSs"), each ten (10) ADSs representing twenty-three (23) ordinary shares of the Company, par value US$0.0001 per share, at US$14.00 per ADS, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs (Press release, I-Mab Biopharma, JAN 16, 2020, View Source [SID1234553310]). The ADSs will begin trading on January 17, 2020 on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol "IMAB."

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The Company has granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 1,111,110 ADSs within 30 days from the date of the final prospectus at US$14.00 per ADS. The total gross proceeds of the offering are expected to be approximately US$ 103,703,600, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs, or approximately US$ 119,259,140, if the underwriters choose to exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs in full.

Jefferies LLC and China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited are acting as joint book-running managers for this offering. China Renaissance Securities (Hong Kong) Limited and Huatai Securities (USA), Inc. are acting as lead managers for this offering.

The Company’s registration statement related to the offering has been filed with, and declared effective by, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Copies of the prospectus related to the offering may be obtained from (i) Jefferies LLC, Attn: Equity Syndicate Prospectus Department, 520 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10022, by telephone at (877) 821-7388 or by e-mail at [email protected] or (ii) China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited, Attn: Rita Li, 29th One International Finance Center, One Harbour View Street, Central, Hong Kong, by telephone at (852) 2872-2000 or by e-mail at [email protected].

On January 16, 2020, Genprex, Inc. (the "Company") reported that it has entered into a securities purchase agreement (the "Securities Purchase Agreement") with an accredited investor identified on the signature page thereto (the "Purchaser") pursuant to which the Company agreed to issue and sell to the Purchaser an aggregate of 961,000 shares (the "Shares") of its common stock, par value $0.001 per share (the "Common Stock"), in a registered direct offering (the "Registered Direct Offering") (Filing, 8-K, Genprex, JAN 16, 2020, View Source [SID1234553309]). The Shares were offered by the Company pursuant to its shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-233774) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Commission") on September 16, 2019, as amended on October 4, 2019 (as amended, the "Registration Statement") and declared effective on October 28, 2019.

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The purchase price for one Share in the Registered Direct Offering was $0.24. The closing of the Registered Direct Offering is anticipated to occur on January 21, 2020. The Company expects the aggregate net proceeds from the Offerings, after deducting estimated offering expenses, to be approximately $200,000. The Company intends to use the aggregate net proceeds for working capital and other general corporate purposes.

The Securities Purchase Agreement contains customary representations, warranties and agreements by the Company and customary conditions to closing.

The foregoing description of the material terms of the Securities Purchase Agreement does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full text of the Securities Purchase Agreement, a copy of which is filed herewith as Exhibit 10.1 and is incorporated herein by reference.

The representations, warranties and covenants contained in the Securities Purchase Agreement were made only for purposes of such agreement and as of specific dates, were solely for the benefit of the parties to the Securities Purchase Agreement and may be subject to limitations agreed upon by the contracting parties. Accordingly, the Securities Purchase Agreement is incorporated herein by reference only to provide investors with information regarding the terms of the Securities Purchase Agreement and not to provide investors with any other factual information regarding the Company or its business, and should be read in conjunction with the disclosures in the Company’s periodic reports and other filings with the Commission.

The legal opinion, including the related consent, of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, LLP relating to the issuance and sale of the Shares is filed as Exhibit 5.1 hereto.

This Current Report on Form 8-K does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.