On May 28, 2020 Genprex, Inc. ("Genprex" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: GNPX), a clinical-stage gene therapy company developing potentially life-changing technologies for patients with cancer and diabetes, reported that warrants to purchase approximately 5.4 million shares of common stock issued in connection with capital raises in May 2018 and November 2019 with two institutional investors have been exercised at a price of $0.46 per share, resulting in cash proceeds of approximately $2.5 million to the Company (Press release, Genprex, MAY 28, 2020, View Source [SID1234558605]). The warrants were exercised on or about May 22, 2020, the first day they became exercisable under the terms of their respective agreements.
Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:
Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing
Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!
The exercised warrants include all warrants that have been issued to investors in the Company’s public financings to date and represent approximately 70% of the Company’s overall outstanding warrants. Warrants remaining after the exercise carry a weighted average exercise price of approximately $3.93. Genprex believes that the elimination of the majority of its outstanding warrants is a significant milestone for the Company in that it provides a dramatically simplified capital structure.
In 2020, Genprex has raised gross proceeds of $25.5 million in two registered direct offerings, both priced at the market, with no warrants issued. The additional capital from these recent warrant excercises brings the equity capital raised during 2020 for advancing the Company’s research and development programs and other corporate initiatives, which could include strategic transactions, to roughly $28 million.
With the Company’s significantly strengthened balance sheet (the warrant exercise proceeds added to the more than $23 million in cash on the Company’s balance sheet as of March 31, 2020), Genprex believes it is in a strong position to pursue its planned clinical trial of its lead gene therapy drug candidate, Oncoprex immunogene therapy, combined with targeted therapy Tagrisso (marketed by AstraZeneca) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients whose tumors progressed on Tagrisso, for which the Company was granted United States FDA Fast Track Designation in January 2020; and a planned clinical trial of Oncoprex combined with Keytruda (marketed by Merck) for late stage NSCLC.