Microbix Receives $2.7 Million from Exercise of Warrants

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, Oct. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Microbix Biosystems Inc. (TSX: MBX, OTCQX: MBXBF, Microbix®), a life sciences innovator and exporter, announces that it has received C$ 2.7 million from the partial exercise of two series of expiring share purchase warrants.

The first series of such warrants were issued in connection with a private placement undertaken in October, 2015, and had an exercise price of C$ 0.55 and a five-year term. The original term of these warrants was extended by one year, as announced by Microbix on September 17, 2020. A total of 1,200,000 of these warrants have been exercised, representing 80% of the total outstanding warrants and providing C$ 660,000 of further equity capital to Microbix.

The second series of such warrants were issued in connection with a private placement undertaken in October, 2017, and had an exercise price of C$ 0.36 and a three-year term. The original term of these warrants was extended by one year, as announced by Microbix on September 17, 2020. A total of 5,658,819 of these warrants have been exercised, representing 97% of the total outstanding warrants and providing C$ 2,037,175 of further equity capital to Microbix.

The total C$ 2,697,175 received from the exercise of these warrants more than offsets the funds used for the early repayment of the C $1.3 million 9% debenture made on October 1, 2021. As of today, Microbix has over C$ 11 million in cash on its balance sheet, along with an undrawn line of credit for up to C$2.0 million. Some of the available funds are being used to drive increasing production capacity for QAPs™ and DxTM™, and for increasing the capacity and efficiency of all operations – to improve margins and earnings.

A total of 375,002 of the 2017 warrants were exercised by Insiders, for whom the term extension was approved by shareholders at Microbix’s Annual General Meeting on March 30, 2021. After addition of all new shares resulting from warrant exercises, Microbix has 129,967,086 common shares outstanding.

Cameron Groome, CEO and President of Microbix, stated, “We greatly appreciate the confidence that our shareholders are demonstrating by exercising their expiring warrants to purchase common shares. We commit to appropriately deploy the additional equity capital that they are committing. Such new equity capital will be used to create further value for our shareholders by helping enable Microbix to support much greater sales and achieve better gross margins and net earnings.”

Jim Currie, CFO of Microbix, also commented, “With these warrant exercises and our recent debenture repayment, Microbix now has a debt-to-equity ratio of less than 0.5 and a current ratio of over 4.0. This financial strength helps demonstrate to prospective customers that we are a reliable long-term partner and should thereby accelerate the growth of our business. Among other matters, our available funds and ongoing positive cash flow are being used to add new product development labs and manufacturing spaces, and to upgrade quality management and enterprise resource planning systems.”

About Microbix Biosystems
Microbix develops proprietary biological technology solutions for human health and well-being, with about 100 skilled employees and sales nearing C$ 2.0 million per month. It makes a wide range of critical biological materials for the global diagnostics industry, notably antigens for immunoassays and its laboratory quality assessment products (QAPs™) that support clinical lab proficiency testing, enable assay development and validation, or help ensure the quality of clinical diagnostic workflows. Microbix antigens enable the antibody tests of over 100 international diagnostics companies, while its QAPs are sold to clinical laboratory accreditation organizations, diagnostics companies, and clinical laboratories. Microbix QAPs are now available in over 30 countries, distributed by 1WA (Oneworld Accuracy Inc.), Alpha-Tec Systems, Inc., Diagnostic International Distribution SpA., Labquality Oy, The Medical Supply Company of Ireland, R-Biopharm AG, SDT Molecular Pte Ltd, Seegene Canada Inc., and Thomas Scientific LLC. Microbix is ISO 9001 and 13485 accredited, U.S. FDA registered, Australian TGA registered, Health Canada establishment licensed, and provides CE marked products.

Microbix also applies its biological expertise and infrastructure to develop other proprietary products and technologies, most notably viral transport medium (DxTM™) to stabilize patient samples for lab-based molecular diagnostic testing and Kinlytic® urokinase, a biologic thrombolytic drug used to treat blood clots. Microbix is traded on the TSX and OTCQX, and headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Forward-Looking Information
This news release includes “forward-looking information,” as such term is defined in applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, discussion of the warrant exercises and their relevance, Microbix’s business and business results, goals or outlook, risks associated with financial results and stability, development projects such as those referenced in its corporate presentation, regulatory compliance and approvals, sales to foreign jurisdictions, engineering and construction, production (including control over costs, quality, quantity and timeliness of delivery), foreign currency and exchange rates, maintaining adequate working capital and raising further capital on acceptable terms or at all, and other similar statements concerning anticipated future events, conditions or results that are not historical facts. These statements reflect management’s current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company’s control. Accordingly, actual future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. All statements are made as of the date of this news release and represent the Company’s judgement as of the date of this new release, and the Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking information.

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Copyright © 2021 Microbix Biosystems Inc.
Microbix®, DxTM™, Kinlytic®, and QAPs™ are trademarks of Microbix Biosystems Inc.