Pharma firm share placing aims to raise over £18m

4D pharma, a listed Leeds-based pharmaceutical company, has launched a proposed fundraising by way of a placing and subscription of new ordinary shares and warrants to raise proceeds of at least £18m. 

Net proceeds of the fundraising, together with the company’s existing resources, are expected to support its ongoing clinical studies into Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and oncology.

And the money will enable 4D pharma to continue to fund its operations for at least two clinical study readouts, as well as for general corporate purposes.

The business will issue 36,000,000 new ordinary shares at a price of 50 pence per share with new and existing investors.

And this placing is to be conducted by way of an accelerated Bookbuild process run by N+1 Singer and Bryan Garnier.

The planned fundraising is conditional on the passing of certain resolutions at a general meeting of the company.

Duncan Peyton, chief executive officer of 4D pharma, said: “4D pharma is pleased to launch this funding round – its first since 2015 and in challenging market conditions for developers of new therapeutics – with strong support from existing and new investors, including our partner MSD and other US investors in addition to those in the UK. 

“This funding will enable us to reach important milestone data points in two clinical studies which we believe will represent material value inflection points as positive data, if generated, will provide strong further validation of our approach to developing live biotherapeutics.”

Founded in February 2014, 4D pharma specialises in the development of LBPs, an emerging class of drugs.

These drugs are defined as biological products which contain a live organism, such as a bacterium, applicable to the prevention, treatment or cure of a disease.