On January 4, 2022 4D pharma plc (AIM: DDDD, NASDAQ: LBPS), a pharmaceutical company leading the development of Live Biotherapeutic products (LBPs), a novel class of drug derived from the microbiome, reported that share options ("Options") have been granted to certain executive directors and members of the senior management team of the Company to acquire a total of 7,278,958 ordinary shares of 0.025p each ("Ordinary Shares") in the Company under the 4D Pharma plc Long Term Incentive Plan with an exercise price of 53.6 pence, being the closing mid-price on 31 December 2021 (Press release, 4d Pharma, JAN 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234598193]). Further details are set out in the table below. The Company may opt to issue ADSs rather than Ordinary Shares upon exercise, in accordance with the 8:1 ratio of Ordinary Shares to ADSs.

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In order to attract and retain personnel necessary to promote the success of the Company for the benefit of its members as a whole, the Company’s Board of Directors instructed that an external, independent benchmarking exercise should be undertaken to ensure that the Company’s remuneration of its employees was comparable to that of its Nasdaq-listed peer group.

Factoring in the results of this benchmarking exercise, and also taking into account that since formation of the Company, no company-wide equity awards had been made previously (including in relation to executive board directors), the Company decided to award share options to all qualifying employees. On 17 December 2021, options were granted to such employees to acquire a total of 7,520,152 Ordinary Shares with an exercise price of 52.35 pence, being equal to the closing mid-price on the date of grant. Together with the 7,278,958 Options granted today, a total of 14,799,110 Options have been granted, representing 8.21 per cent. of the Company’s issued share capital.

The Options awarded today vest in equal parts annually over a period of four years, beginning on 1 June 2022, save for John Doyle where vesting starts from 3 January 2023, and are exercisable over a period of 10 years from the date of grant.

The information set out below is provided in accordance with the requirements of Article 19(3) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation No 596/2014.