Non-Dilutive Funding Strengthens Balance Sheet; Proceeds Equate to More Than $0.08 Per Share
Assures Funding Through Major Company Events; Company Provides Guidance on the Timing of Upcoming Development Milestones
for the Phase III OPTIMA Study and the Phase I/II OVATION 2 Study
LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J., Dec. 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ: CLSN), an oncology drug development company, today announced it has received approval from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s (NJEDA) Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer (NOL) program to sell $2.0 million of its unused New Jersey net operating losses (NOLs) for the tax years 2017 through 2018. The NOLs are typically sold at a small, single-digit discount to qualified companies with operations in New Jersey. As a result, the Company anticipates it will be able to transfer this credit and receive approximately $1.9 million of net cash proceeds by year-end or early 2020. With this funding coupled with an additional $2.0 million sale of unused NJ NOLs in the second half of 2020, the Company expects to have sufficient cash to fund operations into the first quarter of 2021.
This competitive program, administered by the NJEDA, enables approved companies to sell their unused New Jersey net operating losses and R&D tax credits to unaffiliated, profit-generating corporate taxpayers in the state of New Jersey, up to a maximum lifetime benefit of $15 million per company. This allows technology and biotechnology companies with NOLs to turn their tax losses and credits into cash proceeds to fund more R&D, expand its workforce, or cover other allowable expenditures.
“This innovative funding mechanism offered by the NJEDA reinforces our belief in the State of New Jersey’s commitment to biotechnology research. We plan to participate in it again in 2020 to secure the remaining $2 million available to us under the program,” said Michael H. Tardugno, Celsion Corporation’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “The proceeds from the NOL sale strengthen our cash position in a non-dilutive fashion and extends Celsion’s operating runway into the first quarter of 2021. We are positioned to continue to advance our development programs well beyond several expected key value inflection points for the company, including the second interim efficacy analysis in the second quarter of 2020 and, if needed, the final efficacy read-out in the first quarter of 2021 of the Phase III OPTIMA Study for ThermoDox® and initial clinical data from the Phase I portion of the Phase I/II OVATION 2 Study for GEN-1 following the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) meeting, now scheduled for late January 2020. We appreciate the support and commitment of the NJEDA in facilitating our continued innovation and applaud their efforts to foster continued investment and growth for businesses in New Jersey.”
“Throughout the course of 2019, Celsion has sought innovative ways to finance our clinical development programs in some of the world’s most devastating cancers. Balancing the high cost of research and drug development without losing focus on our shareholders is not only reflected in our successful application to sell our New Jersey NOL’s, it is further demonstrated in our judicious use of venture debt on terms that give us an operating runway into the first quarter of 2021,” said Jeffrey W. Church, Celsion Corporation’s Executive Vice President and CFO. “With the support of our shareholders, we look forward to an exciting and promising 2020.”
For more details on this funding for this year’s NOL program, please visit www.njeda.com.
About Celsion Corporation
Celsion is a fully integrated oncology company focused on developing a portfolio of innovative cancer treatments, including directed chemotherapies, immunotherapies and RNA- or DNA-based therapies. The Company's lead program is ThermoDox®, a proprietary heat-activated liposomal encapsulation of doxorubicin, currently in Phase III development for the treatment of primary liver cancer. The pipeline also includes GEN-1, a DNA-based immunotherapy for the localized treatment of ovarian cancer. Celsion has two platform technologies for the development of novel nucleic acid-based immunotherapies and other anti-cancer DNA or RNA therapies. For more information on Celsion, please visit www.celsion.com.
Celsion wishes to inform readers that forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, unforeseen changes in the course of research and development activities and in clinical trials; the uncertainties of and difficulties in analyzing interim clinical data; the significant expense, time, and risk of failure of conducting clinical trials; the need for Celsion to evaluate its future development plans; possible acquisitions or licenses of other technologies, assets or businesses; possible actions by customers, suppliers, competitors, regulatory authorities; and other risks detailed from time to time in Celsion's periodic reports and prospectuses filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Celsion assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise.
Celsion Investor Contact
Jeffrey W. Church
Executive Vice President and CFO
609-482-2455
jchurch@celsion.com
Or
LHA Investor Relations
Kim Sutton Golodetz
212-838-3777
kgolodetz@lhai.com
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