NEW YORK and LONDON, September 21, 2015
AAkari Therapeutics (formerly known as Celsus Therapeutics plc) (NASDAQ: AKTX), an emerging growth, development-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced today that it has closed a previously announced private placement financing with a select group of investors, led by Deerfield, and including Venrock, Vivo Capital, Foresite Capital, New Enterprise Associates, QVT Financial, RA Capital Management and certain other institutional investors. The private placement, which follows the Company’s completion of its acquisition of Volution Immuno Pharmaceuticals SA announced on September 18, 2015, valued the combined entity at $150 million on a fully-diluted basis prior to the completion of the private placement. With the closing of the transaction, Akari received gross proceeds of approximately $75 million from the sale of 3,958,811 restricted American Depositary Shares (ADSs), representing an aggregate of 395,881,100 ordinary shares, at a price of $18.945 per restricted ADS, which represents approximately 33.3% of the outstanding Ordinary Shares of the Company after giving effect to the acquisition and the financing. The Company’s ADSs, each representing 100 Ordinary Shares (giving effect to the previously announced ADS ratio change, trade on The NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol “AKTX” commencing on the date hereof.
