Moleculin Announces Outlicensing Deal To Accelerate Preclinical and Clinical Development
February 20 2019 - 6:30AM
Moleculin Biotech, Inc., (Nasdaq: MBRX) ("Moleculin" or the
"Company"), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on the
development of oncology drug candidates, all of which are based on
license agreements with The University of Texas System on behalf of
the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, today announced that it has
entered into a sublicense agreement with WPD Pharmaceuticals (WPD),
located in Poland.
The agreement provides WPD with exclusive
rights, subject to current license agreements, to develop and
market a range of Moleculin’s technologies in certain European
countries (which does not include the UK, France, Italy and Spain)
in exchange for contributing a minimum of $4 million in development
expenditures agreed upon by Moleculin during the term of the
agreement plus an ongoing royalty on future revenues. The agreement
is specifically geared to provide Moleculin with the benefit of
European Union (EU) grant funding, which is available to companies
like WPD that are formed and present in EU countries.
The Company has previously entered into similar
agreements with Dermin s.p. z.o.o. with some of its technologies in
similar territories and Dermin has succeeded in obtaining grant
funding in Poland benefiting the Company’s development
objectives.
“Prior to being a public company, our portfolio
benefited from funding obtained by Dermin in the past allowing us
to accelerate our lead drug development in exchange for the rights
to selected territories,” commented Walter Klemp, Moleculin’s
Chairman and CEO, “so, we already have a strong track record of
pursuing and utilizing EU funding sources. Since our
Scientific Founder, Dr. Waldemar Priebe has a major interest in
both Moleculin and WPD, we believe we have an even better alignment
of priorities allowing both companies to work together for our
mutual benefit with this new agreement going forward.”
Mr. Klemp added: “We view this as a potential
source of ‘non-dilutive financing’ that we believe greatly benefits
Moleculin shareholders. We estimate that the territories we
are outlicensing represent approximately 10% of the worldwide
spending on healthcare (as reported by the World Health
Organization), and exclude key markets considered important to
potential future outlicensing opportunities with ‘Big Pharma,’ so,
we believe the opportunity to access $4 million and potentially
significantly more in spending toward our development objectives,
without dilution to shareholders, is a good deal for
Moleculin. We believe this deal may allow us to pursue new
indications for our lead drugs that otherwise would remain
unexplored, which may ultimately increase our market opportunities
and our chances for earlier drug approval. An added and
extremely important benefit of this approach is that Moleculin
doesn’t have to invest its own resources in establishing an
EU-based infrastructure that would be required to access such grant
funding of our own. We believe this deal continues our low
overhead, capital efficient approach.”
Roth Capital Partners rendered a fairness opinion to the
Company’s board of directors in connection with the transaction
with WPD.
About Moleculin Biotech, Inc.
Moleculin Biotech, Inc. is a clinical stage
pharmaceutical company focused on the development of oncology drug
candidates, all of which are based on discoveries made at M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center. The Company’s clinical stage drugs are
Annamycin, an anthracycline designed to avoid multidrug resistance
mechanisms with little to no cardiotoxicity being studied for the
treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia, more
commonly referred to as AML, and WP1066, an immuno-stimulating
STAT3 inhibitor targeting brain tumors, pancreatic cancer and AML.
Moleculin Biotech is also engaged in preclinical development of
additional drug candidates, including additional STAT3 inhibitors
and compounds targeting the metabolism of tumors.
For more information about the Company, please visit
http://www.moleculin.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Some of the statements in this release are
forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the
Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act
of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995,
which involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements
in this press release include, without limitation, the ability of
WPD to obtain grant funding for the benefit of Moleculin’s drug
development. Although Moleculin Biotech believes that the
expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are
reasonable as of the date made, expectations may prove to have been
materially different from the results expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Moleculin Biotech has attempted to
identify forward-looking statements by terminology including
''believes,'' ''estimates,'' ''anticipates,'' ''expects,''
''plans,'' ''projects,'' ''intends,'' ''potential,'' ''may,''
''could,'' ''might,'' ''will,'' ''should,'' ''approximately'' or
other words that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes to
identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are
only predictions and involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties, and other factors, including those discussed under
Item 1A. "Risk Factors" in our most recently filed Form 10-K filed
with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and updated
from time to time in our Form 10-Q filings and in our other public
filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements
contained in this release speak only as of its date. We undertake
no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in
this release to reflect events or circumstances occurring after its
date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
ContactsJoe Dorame, Robert Blum or Joe
DiazLytham Partners, LLC602-889-9700mbrx@lythampartners.com
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