Cassava Sciences Inc.
SAVA,
said Wednesday it is planning a registered direct offering of $200 million of shares, priced at $49 each, or a discount over Tuesday’s closing price of $450.29. The company, which is developing a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, said H.C. Wainwright & Co. is exclusive placement agent for the deal. Proceeds will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes, including development of its simufilam, the company’s main product candidate. On Monday, Cassava said it expects to move forward with a Phase 3 clinical trial for simufilan, based on meetings with the Food and Drug Administration, sometime in the second half of this year. This trial has not been publicly granted a go-ahead by the regulator. The company said last week that simufilam improved cognition and behavior scores in 50 patients with mild-to-moderate forms of the disease after six months of treatment, according to an interim analysis of an open-label study. Shares fell 13% premarket on the news of the dilutive offering.