NanoViricides raises $5 mln in shelf offering, has more than 2 years of cash in hand

NanoViricides (OTCBB:NNVC) said Friday that it has raised $5.0 million drawing down on its previously announced registered shelf offering.
The offering, which became effective on April 29, continues to remain effective, the company said.
The new funds gives NanoViricidies more than two years of current operating expenses as cash in hand, allowing the company the ability to settle certain testing costs for its anti-influenza drug candidate and to support the costs of additional equipment needed for the production of future clinical batches of its drug candidates.
NanoViricides is a company that holds more than one promising clinical development programs under its belt, with its most advanced - FluCide - set for an investigational new drug (IND) application.
The drug development company makes anti-viral therapies using nanomaterials for a number of viral diseases including seasonal influenza, HIV/AIDS, oral and genital herpes, and the Dengue virus, among many others.
Currently, NanoViricides has five drug development programs within its pipeline, including FluCide, a drug that works against all forms of influenza such as seasonal and epidemic flus, and HIVCide, a drug that works against the HIV/AIDS virus, which the company says could become a "functional cure" for the disease.
FluCide, which has the most clinical data of all of the company's potential drugs and is therefore being advanced through the FDA process first, works on the same principles as the rest of NanoViricides' platform.
The financing announced today was received from a single investor, Seaside 88 LP, a Florida-based limited partnership that has invested around $20 million in NanoViricides so far.
Yesterday, the company received $2.5 million on closing, and has entered into a securities purchase agreement with Seaside for up to 5,000 shares of its newly created Series C Preferred stock, at a price of $1,000 per share.
A certain number of the preferred C shares will convert to common stock automatically every 14 days. The amount of common stock issued at each conversion will be equal to 15 per cent of the average volume of common stock traded in the previous two weeks, plus common stock resulting from conversion of accrued dividend, the company said.
"Conversion based on trading volume provides a substantial amount of stability to the trading market," said CEO and CFO, Dr. Eugene Seymour, adding, "it takes away the adverse price impact that could happen when a fixed dollar amount is converted every two weeks, which was the case with our Series B Preferred Stock."
The first conversion of Series C Preferred shares to common stock took place on Thursday, with additional conversions to follow every two weeks.
"We are pleased that Seaside has agreed to finance the company on terms that are substantially more favorable to the interests of our shareholders than in the past,” said president Anil R. Diwan.
"This financing is very important for the company as we advance our influenza drug candidate towards IND stage and future human clinical trials. It will also help us to continue to move forward with all of the drug programs in our broad pipeline."
In early April, the company said that the U.S. health regulator gave a "good roadmap"  toward an investigational new drug (IND) application for FluCide at a pre-IND meeting.
The company said it received comments and exchanged a list of questions with the FDA prior to the meeting, and believes the health regulator has given the company a good roadmap for advancing the drug toward an investigational new drug application.
So far, FluCide has been tested in thousands of animals, without having a failure. Results have showed effectiveness in inhibiting the cycle of infection, and the spread of the virus, as well as long-lasting effects after drug use was stopped.
The clinical drug candidate is anticipated to be effective against the majority of strains and types of influenzas like swine flu, seasonal flu such as H1N1, H3N2, highly pathogenic types such as H7N and H9N, as well as the highly lethal bird flu, or H5N1.
The drug company is currently working on the studies needed for an IND submission for FluCide. It also noted that it is working on enabling current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) capabilities for its drug candidates, for future human clinical trials.
Midtown Partners acted as the placement agent for this transaction and received a cash placement fee of six per cent, the company said.