NanoViricides Inc., a Shelton-based company that is developing nanotechnology based antiviral medicines, announced Wednesday it is entering into a securities purchase agreement with institutional investors.
The agreement provides for the purchase and sale of over 6.9 million units at a price of $0.36 per unit, according to a press release. Each unit represents one share of common stock and one five-year warrant exercisable at $0.61.
The company is developing medication aimed at viral diseases such as influenza, swine flu, bird flu, HIV/AIDS, cold sores and genital herpes, viral eye diseases, dengue viruses, Ebola virus, rabies, and more.
In early February, the company announced it had selected a clinical candidate for further development under the HerpeCide broad-spectrum drug program, a topical skin cream expected to be effective for treating the shingles rash. Shingles in adults is caused by the same virus as the chicken pox in children, and there currently is no effective treatment for it.
“The market size for an effective anti-shingles drug is currently estimated to be in the range of billions of dollars, even after a new shingles vaccine, Shingrix (GlaxoSmithKline) has been approved,” the company said in a press release.
According to company officials, their drug candidates against cold sores and genital herpes are in advanced studies and are expected to follow the shingles drug candidate into human clinical trials.
The investment bank Chardan acted as the placement agent in connection with the financing, according to NanoViricides, which expected the closing of the sale of the securities to take place on Wednesday.
NanoViricides officials believe this financing will provide key capital to immediately help it advance its drugs into human clinical trials.
The company will file a prospectus supplement related to the shares of common stock with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which will be available at www.sec.gov.
