Oxford, UK 9th December 2013. Chronos Therapeutics Limited ("Chronos" or "the Company") is pleased to announce the completion of a major fundraising. This will enable the Company to accelerate progress of its lead compound in the fatal neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease) and advance other
programmes. The details are as follows:
• £8m (US$13m) of new money raised.
• Strong support from existing investors including The University of Oxford, Vulpes Life Science and Testudo funds.
• Several new investors from the United Kingdom and Asia joined the round including Odey European Inc and The Odey Swan Fund.
The proceeds will be used to accelerate Chronos' programme in the motor neurone disease, ALS through to phase 2b clinical trials with the Company's lead compound RDC5. Chronos received a UK Technology Strategy Board Biomedical Catalyst grant in July 2013 for the pre-clinical proof of concept experiments in ALS, which will support the clinical programme. Proceeds will also be used to investigate other novel properties of RDC5 and select and develop a second lead compound from the library of Chronos compounds with cellular lifespan enhancing effects. These properties were discovered in the Company's proprietary high throughput phenotypic screen, the ChronoscreenTM.
Chronos Chairman, Christian Hoyer Millar commented; "We are delighted with the level of support shown by our existing shareholders for this round of fund raising and welcome a new group of shareholders to Chronos in a strongly over-subscribed issue that enables us to accelerate our progress in the diseases of cellular ageing."
Chronos CEO, Dr Huw Jones commented; "ALS is a devastating disease with few treatment options. We hope to add to those options for ALS patients in the future thanks to this financing. The ALS programme adds a second phase 2 study to our development effort, which is already set to investigate our lead compound in osteoporosis during 2014. The two Phase 2 programmes will be complemented with additional compounds discovered in the ChronoscreenTM, expanding our pipeline and highlighting the potential of our platform technology."
Chronos was advised by Gleacher Shacklock LLP and others in this financing round.