Genfit just added €34M to its cash pile through private placement to bankroll the development of its succeeding lead candidate, Elafibranor.
Genfit has had a good year. Earlier this year, the company enrolled its first patient in Phase III clinical trails for Non-Alcoholic Stato-Hepatitis (NASH), and last month, it launched a new non-invasive diagnostic program. It’s also extending its reach into another sort of liver disease, Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC). The French biopharma will fuel the development of these programs with a new cash injection of €34M, which it just raised through private placement.
Earlier today, the company placed 1,7M new shares at €20 each, which represents 6.4% of its pre-transaction share capital. Genfit itself is now worth €633M. This private placement is the first part of a fundraising move aiming to bring in €75-80M to fund the development of the company’s NASH and PBC programs.
Elafibranor is Genfit’s most promising therapy, and it is currently undergoing Phase III clinical trials. The biopharma will use the additional €34M to sustain these trials, initiate pediatric studies, prepare market access and also expand the clinical development of Elafibranor to PBC trials. The next step is to commence the second part, rights issuance, to reel in an additional €45M. Genfit expects to have enough funding to propel it through late 2018 and into early 2019.
NASH and PBC aren’t crowded fields in biotech, but Genfit is competing directly with Intercept, a US company that has also made it to Phase III. Genfit’s cash injection will hopefully give it the boost it needs to cross the finish line of the race to a new NASH treatment first! You can hear more about the company’s efforts in our interview with the CEO last year.
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