Also queried the financing with some frustration and got the following reply...
"Dear Chris,
Please know that we certainly understand and appreciate your frustration. The Company has always strived to move the clinical development of our product candidates forward as quickly and efficiently as possible, however as I am sure that you are aware, that requires large amounts of capital. We have to be opportunistic about bringing in capital at the right time, on the right terms and most importantly, with the right high-quality institutional investors as long term partners who believe in and support our business strategy.
We have to date, and will continue to moving forward, devote substantially the majority of our resources to the research and development (R&D) of our product candidates. Please note that our most recent quarterly report includes the following disclosure regarding cash under the Management Outlook section: "We anticipate that our cash, cash equivalents and investment securities as of September 30, 2014 will be sufficient to fund our currently planned level of operations for at least the next 12 months." If you have a chance to review prior quarterly financial reports you will see that the disclosure has been the same.
Additionally, we provided extensive guidance in our last 10-Q on expected costs to move our clinical development programs forward through completion. As an example, only external R&D costs from this point to completion of our EPIC study (including our recently announced EPIC extension study which will expand our existing safety database regarding repeat exposure to MST-188) and our two Phase 2 studies of MST-188 in Acute Limb Ischemia and Acute Decompensated Heart Failure are estimated at approximately $25 million. That of course does not take into account SG&A expenses. We do not believe that it is in the best interests of our shareholders to be in a position where we do not have enough cash on hand to move past hopefully successful EPIC results, towards the next steps required for our NDA submission and other development activities. Moreover, the benefit of having enough cash on hand as we approach the completion of EPIC allows us greater leverage and is an asset in any strategic partnership discussions. As we outlined in our press release yesterday, we intend to use the net proceeds from this offering primarily to fund our clinical development programs, including EPIC and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
We do appreciate your candor and your continued support and please do know that the entire Mast team is working hard to realize our short- and long-term corporate goals."
Regards,
Ioana
