Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: INO) announced today its intention to offer, subject to market and other conditions, $65 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2024 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Inovio also expects to grant the initial purchasers of the notes a 13-day option to purchase up to an additional $20 million aggregate principal amount of notes.
The notes will be senior unsecured Inovio obligations and will accrue interest payable semiannually in arrears. The notes will be convertible in certain circumstances into cash, shares of Inovio's common stock, or a combination of cash and shares of Inovio's common stock, at Inovio's election. The interest rate, initial conversion rate and other terms of the notes will be determined at the time of the pricing of the offering.
Inovio anticipates using the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including clinical trial expenses, research and development expenses, general and administrative expenses and manufacturing expenses, and for other business development activities.
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Inovio is a late-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of DNA immunotherapies that transform the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Inovio's proprietary platform technology applies next-generation antigen sequencing and DNA delivery to activate potent immune responses to targeted diseases. The technology functions exclusively in vivo, and has been demonstrated to consistently activate robust and fully functional T cell and antibody responses against targeted cancers and pathogens. Inovio has reported generating T cells whose killing capacity correlates with relevant clinical outcomes. Inovio's most advanced clinical program, VGX-3100, is in Phase 3 for the treatment of HPV-related cervical pre-cancer. Also in development are Phase 2 immuno-oncology programs targeting head and neck cancer, bladder cancer, and glioblastoma, as well as platform development programs in hepatitis B, Zika, Ebola, MERS, and HIV. Partners and collaborators include MedImmune, Regeneron, Roche/Genentech, ApolloBio Corporation, The Wistar Institute, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, CEPI, DARPA, GeneOne Life Science, Plumbline Life Sciences, Drexel University, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military HIV Research Program, and Laval University.
