INmune Bio, a clinical-stage immunology company focused on developing treatments that harness patients’ innate immune systems to fight disease, entered into a new $15 million credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank and an affiliate of SVB Financial Group.
INmune intends to use the proceeds from the facility to partially fund the buyout of an option held by Xencor, resulting from INmune’s in-licensing of XPro1595 (now known by its generic name, pegipanermin) in October 2017. Total consideration to be paid to Xencor by INmune is $18.3 million, comprised of $15 million of cash and $3.3 million of INMB shares at a price of $17.14, resulting in the issuance of 192,533 shares.
Pursuant to the original 2017 in-licensing agreement, INmune granted Xencor an option to purchase an additional number of shares of common stock equal to 10% of INmune’s fully diluted company shares for a period of seven years. The retirement of the Xencor option eliminates an estimated 2.1 million shares of potential future common stock dilution upon exercise of the option.
Concurrent with this transaction, David Szymkowski, Ph.D., vice president of preclinical operations at Xencor, stepped down from INmune’s board of directors.
“INmune Bio has made significant progress to date on the development of XPro1595, including the announcement of encouraging data in Alzheimer’s disease earlier this year,” Szymkowski said. “XPro1595 is a novel approach to addressing the neuroinflammation implicated in a number of serious neurological indications, where more effective treatment options are desperately needed. We look forward to INmune’s continued progress as XPro1595 advances in multiple clinical studies.”
“We are grateful to the team at Xencor for reaching this agreement and allowing us to simplify our capital structure,” RJ Tesi, MD, CEO of INmune Bio, said. “We remain acutely focused on the timely initiation of Phase II trials of XPro1595 in Alzheimer’s and treatment resistant depression later this year.”
