Faron Pharma to raise £15m for Traumakine investment

AIM-listed biopharmaceutical group Faron Pharmaceuticals announced plans on Friday to raise up to £15m through a placing and subscription.

The company announced a placing of up to 1.73m new ordinary shares with institutional and other investors and a proposed subscription of up to 134,000 shares at 805p each. If subscribed for in full, this would represent around 6% of the company's shares.

Proceeds from the subscription and placing will be used to accelerate commercial investment of Traumakine, the company's lead product, to prepare for market launches ahead of expedited regulatory filings in the US and Europe and to advance, expand and accelerate the Clevegen clinical development program, the MATINS trial, through to Phase IIb.

Panmure Gordon is acting as nominated advisor, sole bookrunner and corporate broker to the company.

Chief executive officer Markku Jalkanen said: "Ahead of data from the INTEREST trial, which we continue to expect in early Q2 2018, Faron is advancing preparation for Traumakine commercialisation in collaboration with our chosen contract commercial organisation. This fundraise will allow us to accelerate the build out of medical sales and supply chain logistics ahead of Traumakine's anticipated US and European launches in 2019.

"Furthermore, following recent positive FDA advice which expedites Traumakine's potential route to the US market, we want to ensure we have a strong US sales and marketing base and logistics network in place to ensure prompt market entry pending potential regulatory approval. In addition, we plan to initiate the Clevegen Phase I/II MATINS clinical trial program in several solid tumours and this funding will allow us to expedite the planned expansion of Clevegen's clinical program to achieve Phase IIb data. 2018 is set to be a pivotal year for Faron and we are looking forward to moving both our novel products to the next stage."

At 1010 GMT, the shares were up 2.5% to 825p.