RedHill Biopharma Ltd (RDHL)

[midastouch017]

Raleigh drugmaker pursuing Covid treatment raising $15M to fund acquisitions

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/c79ee13e-1d1a-30fa-8497-3d049a35ee8e/raleigh-drugmaker-pursuing.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

By Zac Ezzone – Staff writer, Triangle Business Journal

May 10, 2022

A Triangle drugmaker pursuing Covid-19 treatments is raising $15 million through a direct offering with a health care investor.

RedHill Biopharma (Nasdaq: RDHL), an Israeli company that operates a U.S. headquarters in Raleigh, disclosed Monday it had reached an agreement with "a single leading health care investor" for the purchase of more than 10 million shares in a registered direct offering at $1.42 a share.

Additionally, the company agreed to issue unregistered private warrants to the investor to purchase up to more than 13 million shares at $1.48 a share in a concurrent private placement, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company expects the offering to close Wednesday.

The company says that it intends to use the $15 million to support working capital, acquisitions and general corporate purposes.

RedHill's stock fell more than 30 percent Monday after the company disclosed the offering prior to markets opening. The company's shares were trading at $1.48 when the market closed Friday. By the end of Monday, the price dropped to $1.08 a share. Its 52-week high is $11.18.

The offering follows the company signing a licensing deal with the South Korean corporation Kubo Co. Ltd for the exclusive rights to commercialize RedHill's investigational Covid-19 treatment called opaganib. Through this deal, which the company unveiled in March, RedHill will receive an upfront payment of $1.5 million and is eligible to receive up to $5.6 million in milestone payments, in addition to low double-digit royalties on the net sales of opaganib in South Korea.

RedHill announced in December it has sent clinical data from a phase 2/3 study and other information on opaganib to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the equivalent agencies in the European Union and United Kingdom to try to advance the treatment through the regulatory process. Discussions between RedHill and these countries remain ongoing, according to the company's annual financial report released in March.

In addition to opaganib, the company is pursuing another investigational Covid-19 treatment called RHB-107, which is being developed for the treatment of non-hospitalized symptomatic patients. The company continues to advance the drug in a phase 2/3 study.

In addition to these investigational treatments and other candidates in its pipeline, the company is focused on the commercialization of three gastrointestinal-related products: Movantik, Talicia and Aemcolo. In 2021, the company generated about $76.8 million in revenue from Movantik sales, which made up most of its net revenue for the year of roughly $85.8 million. That revenue total was up 33.2 percent from 2020.

The company's expenses also rose last year. RedHill attributes an increase in research and development expenses from $16.5 million in 2020 to $29.5 million in 2021 to the advancement of its Covid-19 programs. Additionally, the company saw its selling, marking and general and administrative expenses rise from $74.7 million in 2020 to $88 million in 2021. This increase was mainly due to an expansion of RedHill's commercial operations related to Talicia and Movantik, which both launched in 2020.

The company ended 2021 with an operating loss of $81.1 million and a cash balance of $54.2 million.