Health and Healthcare

Annovis Bio Enters the Market With a Bang

Chris Lange

Published: January 29, 2020 12:55 pm

Annovis Bio Inc. (NYSE: ANVS) entered the market with a bang on Wednesday. This biotech originally priced its offering of 2 million shares at $6 apiece, with an overallotment option for an additional 300,000 shares. At this price, the entire offering was valued up to $13.8 million.

ThinkEquity, a division of Fordham Financial Management, is acting as sole book-running manager for the offering.

This is a clinical-stage, drug platform company addressing neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s in Down Syndrome (AD-DS).

Management has said that it is the only company developing a drug for AD, PD and AD-DS that inhibits more than one neurotoxic protein and, thereby, improving the information highway of the nerve cell, known as axonal transport. When this information flow is impaired, the nerve cells get sick and die.

The firm expects this treatment to improve memory loss and dementia associated with AD and AD-DS, as well as body and brain function in PD. Annovis has an ongoing Phase 2a proof-of-concept study in AD patients and plans to commence a second Phase 2a study in PD patients.

Annovis intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes and working capital. Specifically, the firm will put the proceeds toward the development of its AD, PD and AD-DS pipeline.

However, the company was quick to note in a recent SEC filing that the net proceeds from this offering, together with its cash, will not be sufficient to fund any of the product candidates through regulatory approval. As a result, Annovis will need to raise additional capital to complete the development and commercialization of its product candidates.

Shares of Annovis were last seen up about 42% at $8.59, in a range of $6.68 to $8.96 on the day thus far. Also over 2 million shares had moved on the day as of 12:45 p.m. Eastern.