WOBURN, MASSACHUSETTS — Frequency Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: FREQ), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on harnessing the body’s innate biology to repair or reverse damage caused by a broad range of degenerative diseases, announced this week that it has agreed to sell 2,350,108 shares of its common stock in a private placement to institutional and accredited investors.
Institutional investors in the private placement included Wasatch Global, Federated Hermes Kaufmann Funds, RTW Investments, Perceptive Advisors, Driehaus Capital Management, Maven Investment Partners US and Alexandria Venture Investments, in addition to other new and existing investors. The transaction is expected to result in gross proceeds to the Company of approximately $42.3 million, based on a price of $18.00 per share, before deducting placement agent fees and other expenses. The closing of the private placement is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to occur on July 20, 2020.
The Company plans to use the net proceeds from the private placement to further advance the clinical development of FX-322, its lead product candidate in Phase 2a development for sensorineural hearing loss, by gaining additional insights regarding the patient populations and severity of hearing loss that FX-322 may treat. The Company also plans to increase support for its remyelination program in multiple sclerosis, which it intends to move into the clinic in the second half of 2021, and new areas of research where there is potential to utilize the Company’s progenitor cell activation platform.
Cowen and Company, LLC served as the placement agent for the private placement.
“We are very pleased with recent clinical advances demonstrating both delivery of FX-322 to the site of action within the cochlea and the durable hearing response seen in patients from our Phase 1/2 study. This additional investment will further support our ongoing FX-322 development efforts to bring a potential disease modifying therapeutic forward to the millions of individuals suffering from hearing loss, and apply our regenerative medicine platform to other serious degenerative diseases including our remyelination work in multiple sclerosis”
–David L. Lucchino, Frequency Therapeutics CEO
About Frequency Therapeutics
Frequency Therapeutics is a leader in the development of medicines designed to activate progenitor cells within the body to treat degenerative diseases. The Company’s progenitor cell activation (PCA) approach stimulates progenitor cells to create functional tissue with the aim of developing disease modifying therapies. The Company’s lead product candidate, FX-322, is designed to regenerate auditory hair cells to restore hearing function. In a FX-322 Phase 1/2 study, statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in key measures of hearing function in patients with sensorineural hearing loss were observed. FX-322 is being evaluated in an ongoing Phase 2a study. The Company also is evaluating additional diseases where its PCA approach could create functional tissue, including a discovery program in multiple sclerosis.
Headquartered in Woburn, Mass., Frequency has a license and collaboration agreement with Astellas Pharma Inc. for FX-322, for which it retains U.S. rights, as well as additional collaboration and licensing agreements with academic and nonprofit research organizations including The Scripps Research Institute, Cambridge Enterprises Limited, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Partners Healthcare and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Source: Frequency Therapeutics
