Inovio Pharmaceuticals Closes $4.0 Million Underwritten Financing
BLUE BELL, Pa., Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex: INO), which is advancing synthetic vaccines to fight cancers and infectious diseases, announced today that it has closed an underwritten public offering of 7,699,712 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase up to 5,774,784 additional shares of its common stock, which included the partial exercise of the underwriter's overallotment option to purchase additional units at the public offering price. The shares and warrants were placed with five institutional investors. These securities were sold in units, consisting of one share of common stock and 0.75 of a warrant to purchase one share of common stock, at a price of $0.5195 per unit. The warrants have a term of five years and an exercise price of $0.65 per share. Inovio may call these warrants if the closing bid price of the common stock has been at least $1.30 over 20 trading daysand certain other conditions are met.
The gross proceeds of the offering were $4.0 million. Net proceeds to Inovio, after deducting the underwriter's discounts and other estimated offering expenses payable by Inovio, were approximately $3.7 million. Brean Murray, Carret & Co. acted as sole bookrunner of this offering. Inovio intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including clinical trial expenses and research and development expenses.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, President and CEO of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, said "We're pleased to see these institutional investors support our strategy to develop Inovio's synthetic vaccines. In 2011 we achieved multiple important milestones toward our goal of revolutionizing vaccine technology and we look forward to the clinical outcomes ahead of us in 2012."
The securities described above were offered by Inovio pursuant to a registration statement previously filed and declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. Inovio has filed a prospectus supplement related to the offering with the SEC. Copies of the prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus relating to this offering may be obtained at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or from Brean Murray, Carret & Co., LLC by e-mail to [email protected] or Inovio by mail at 1787 Sentry Parkway West, Building 18, Suite 400, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania 19422. This announcement is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any of our common stock. No offer, solicitation or sale will be made in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful.
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Inovio is developing its revolutionary vaccines to extend the profound medical benefits of the 20th century's immune-system-stimulating vaccines by preventing and treating today's cancers and challenging infectious diseases. Its SynCon® vaccines are designed to provide universal cross-strain protection against known as well as newly emergent unmatched strains of pathogens such as influenza. These synthetic vaccines, in combination with Inovio's proprietary electroporation delivery, have been shown in humans to generate best-in-class immune responses with a favorable safety profile. Inovio's clinical programs include Phase II studies for cervical dysplasia/cancer, leukemia and hepatitis C virus and Phase I studies for influenza and HIV. Partners and collaborators include the University of Pennsylvania, Merck, ChronTech, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military HIV Research Program, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, University of Southampton, US Dept. of Homeland Security and PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative. More information is available at www.inovio.com.