(Alliance News) - e-Therapeutics PLC on Friday said it plans to raise GBP13.5 million via a subscription, as it looks to accelerate growth.
e-Therapeutics is an Oxford, England-based computer-based drug discovery company.
The firm said the subscription shares will be priced at 20 pence each. This represents a 10% premium to the closing price of 18.16 pence on Thursday, being the last business day before this announcement.
e-Therapeutics shares were up 10% to 19.60 pence each in London on Friday around midday.
The fundraise will be managed by M&G Investment Management Ltd, an investor and existing shareholder of the company.
The company said that proceeds will be used to accelerate its growth, with a focus on expanding its in-house pipeline of candidate products and developing cell type-specific computational tools and datasets. It will also be used for general working capital.
e-Therapeutics Chief Executive Ali Mortazavi said: "This successful fundraise underlines ETX's position at the intersection of computational approaches to drug discovery and genetic medicine, using RNA interference as our drug modality of choice."
Separately, e-Therapeutics reported that in the six months to July 31 revenue fell by 38% to GBP295,000 from GBP477,000 in the same period last year. Pretax loss widened to GBP4.5 million, from GBP3.5 million.
It added that research & development expenditure in the first half increase to GBP3.1 million from GBP2.5 million year-on-year, and it expects this to accelerate into the second half of its financial year 2023.
Looking ahead, the company said it remains confident in its strategy, business model and investment proposition, despite macro challenges associated with the global economy and biotech sector.
By Sophie Rose; sophierose@alliancenews.com
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