Chimeric Therapeutics board and management commit to capital injection
Clinical-stage cell therapy company Chimeric Therapeutics (ASX: CHM) has received commitments from its board and management team to raise $1.04 million under a placement of new shares.
The company will issue 22.66 million new and fully-paid ordinary shares at $0.046 each, which is equal to the last closing price on 12 May.
The placement will be subject to shareholder approval, with the new shares issued to rank equally with existing ones.
It is anticipated that the new shares will be issued once approval has been received at an extraordinary general meeting.
Executive chairman Paul Hopper said the new funds would allow Chimeric to continue the development of its world-class cell therapy programs.
“The funds we are injecting into the business is an indicator of the confidence and potential we see in the technologies we have managed to bring into Chimeric,” he said.
“We look forward to delivering data and milestones related to these in due course.”
Share purchase plan
Chimeric will also undertake a share purchase plan at favourable terms for eligible existing shareholders, to raise up to a further $5.25 million.
It is expected to be offered at either $0.04 per share (reflecting a 13% discount to the last traded price) or at a 5% discount to the five-day volume weighted average price up to and including the closing date of the plan.
Applications for shares under the plan will be capped at the statutory maximum of $30,000 per eligible shareholder.
“The share purchase plan will provide shareholders with an opportunity to participate at a discount to the board and management, and we thank them in anticipation for their ongoing support,” Mr Hopper said.
Bell Potter Securities has been appointed lead manager to the raising.
Cell therapy advances
Over the last six months, Chimeric has advanced a Phase 1A clinical trial for CLTX CAR T in patients with progressive glioblastoma to the final dose level and received ethics approval for the initiation of a Phase 1B multi-site GBM clinical trial.
It has also completed viral vector manufacturing for CDH17 CAR T, which was invented at the University of Pennsylvania to treat gastrointestinal and neuroendocrine tumours; received a positive pre-investigational new drug interaction with the US Food and Drug Administration; and initiated the first ever NK combination trial with Vactosertib and CORE-NK.