The board of directors of Shelton antiviral developer NanoViricides Inc. has approved a 1-for-20 reverse stock split, a move the company said was aimed at keeping it listed on the NYSE American stock exchange.
The reverse split will take effect after the market closes Sept. 23, the company announced. NanoViricides’ stock will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis the following day.
A reverse split raises a company’s share price by reducing the overall number of shares. The move does not change the total value of a shareholder’s equity in the company, although it is typically viewed negatively by Wall Street.
As a result of the move, the preclinical-stage biotech said its outstanding shares of common stock will be reduced from roughly 76.9 million to approximately 3.85 million. The number of outstanding shares of preferred stock will be reduced to about 255,703.
It was not clear Tuesday whether the stock exchange had formally moved to delist the company. NanoViricides, which has traded on the exchange since 2013, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The exchange may move to delist a stock if it sells “for a substantial period of time at a low price per share.” NanoViricides’ stock was trading at 19 cents as of late Tuesday morning.
Founded in 2005, NanoViricides has been advancing a skin cream for shingles toward human trials but said in an August SEC filing that it was experiencing “extreme” staffing and financial constraints.
The filing said the company needed to raise an additional $3 million to pursue U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval of the drug. It had planned to file an investigational new drug application (IND) by the end of this year.
***
A new gene-editing biotech with ties to New Haven has launched in South San Francisco after raising $34 million.
Trucode Gene Repair Inc. announced Sept. 10 that it was emerging from stealth mode after securing initial funding from Kleiner Perkins and GV (formerly known as Google Ventures).
The startup, which is focused on correcting gene mutations that cause sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis and other genetic disorders, uses gene-editing technology based on the work of Yale professors Peter Glazer, MD, Mark Salzman and Marie Eagan, MD. The technology harnesses the body’s natural DNA repair mechanisms to edit disease-causing mutations, Trucode said.
Glazer is also the chief medical officer and scientific co-founder of three-year-old New Haven-based oncology biotech Cybrexa Therapeutics.
Trucode said it obtained worldwide licensing rights to Glazer’s technology through Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research and holds additional licenses from Carnegie Mellon University.
***
Medical imaging firm Invicro has appointed Yale University professor Evan Morris as vice president of scientific imaging research in its New Haven office.
Morris will offer support and technical direction for translational research, core lab analysis, clinical operations and chemistry services, Invicro said Monday.
Morris has been a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, biomedical engineering and psychiatry at Yale for more than a decade, focusing on functional brain imaging.
The Konica Minolta subsidiary gained an Elm City presence 2016 when it acquired New Haven startup Molecular Neuroimaging (NMI).
The Boston-based company has a clinical facility at 60 Temple Street and subleased 39,000 square feet of office space at 100 College Street from Alexion in 2018. It also has a research facility in London.
***
Guilford-based Bioasis Technologies Inc., a research-stage biotech focused on brain cancers and neurological disorders, said it has been approved for a new patent in Japan.
The patent is related to the company’s xB³ platform, technology it has developed to transport medicine across the blood-brain barrier, the brain’s filtering mechanism.
The decision by the Japanese Patent Office “represents a significant addition to our intellectual property protection around our core assets in the major world markets including the U.S., Europe and China,” CEO Deborah Rathjen said in a statement.
Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com