Galmed Pharmaceuticals jumps on Nasdaq offering

Chaim Hurvitz Photo: Jonathan Bloom
Chaim Hurvitz Photo: Jonathan Bloom

The Israeli fatty liver treatment drug developer raised $6 million in a secondary offering.

Israeli clinical-stage drug development company Galmed Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (Nasdaq: GLMD) has raised $6 million in a secondary offering on Nasdaq on the basis of a shelf-prospectus filed last week. The Tel Aviv-based company is developing a drug for treating inflammation of the liver caused by fatty-liver disease.

The offering was conducted at $6 per share with a free share attached and the warrants have an exercise price of $15 per share after one year. The price of the offering was at a 14% premium over the share price when the announcement was made. Accordingly the share price jumped 15.08% yesterday on Nasdaq to $5.80, giving a market cap of $83.94 million.

Since Galmed's IPO in 2014, the company's share price had lost 60% of its value although it has now risen 35% over the past year. The share rose very sharply earlier this year but fell back after publishing unsuccessful results of a small clinical trial on treatment for AIDS patients with fatty liver disease.

Galmed expects the results of a much bigger clinical trial on fatty liver treatment in the coming few months and investors in this latest IPO are betting on the trial finding positive end-points.

The ARREST Study is a multicenter, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled Phase IIb clinical study designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Aramchol in subjects with NASH, who are overweight or obese, and who are pre-diabetic or type-II-diabetic.

Galmed is managed by CEO Allen Baharaff and Chaim Hurvitz serves as chairman.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 4, 2018

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018

Chaim Hurvitz Photo: Jonathan Bloom
Chaim Hurvitz Photo: Jonathan Bloom
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