Drug development company BioLineRX Ltd. (Nasdaq: BLRX); TASE:BLRX) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with healthcare investor OrbiMed Israel Partners LP, an affiliate of OrbiMed Advisors LLC. OrbiMed will invest $8 million in BioLineRX.
BioLineRX said that OrbiMed has agreed to purchase 2,666,667 American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”), each representing ten of its Ordinary Shares, and 1,600,000 warrants to purchase an additional 1,600,000 ADSs, at a unit price of $3, a 24% discount on the share's closing price on Tuesday. The warrants have an exercise price of $3.94 per warrant and are exercisable for a term of five years.
BioLine said that the offering will close on or about February 11, 2013, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
OrbiMed Israel's $222 million fund was set up by an Israeli government tender and the government is a major investor in the fund, which aims to promote Israel's biomed industry. The Fund, which is led by three full time Israel-based partners Dr. Nissim Darvish, Anat Naschitz and Erez Chimovits and US partner Jonathan Silverstein, has made investments in endoscopic developer Medigus Ltd. (TASE:MDGS), ear medication developer Otic Pharma, monitoring company Ornim, cCam Biotherapeutics, and anal drug delivery company RDD Pharma. However, this is its long awaited first investment in a later stage drug development company.
Trading in BioLineRX's share has been volatile recently ahead of publication of the intermediary results of its CLARITY clinical trial on the schizophrenic treatment it is developing.
BioLineRX CEO Dr. Kinneret Savitsky said, "The capital raised will help us to continue with the accelerated development of our clinical and pre-clinical stage therapeutic assets."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 6, 2013
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