WEST HAVEN, CONNECTICUT -- Monday, September 23rd, 2013 -- NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE MKT: NNVC) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that its common shares have been approved to list on the NYSE MKT (the “Exchange”) and will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, September 25, 2013. The Company will continue to trade under the symbol "NNVC". In connection with this listing, NanoViricides’ common stock will cease trading on the OTC BB.
“Trading on NYSE-MKT is an important milestone for us,” said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President of the Company, adding, “In order to deliver maximum benefit for our shareholders, we decided that listing on a National Exchange was very important. We then determined that NYSE MKT provides an ideal combination of Company Requirements and Market Regulatory Policies that would be of great benefit to development stage biopharma companies such as ours. We are happy to be part of the NYSE MKT community. With a rich platform technology that has already yielded six commercially important drug candidates, we are very excited to move towards human clinical trials, and look forward to a great future on the Exchange.”
NYSE MKT is considered a premier US equities market for listing and trading of small growth companies. NYSE MKT is a fully integrated trading venue within the NYSE Euronext community and leverages the NYSE's advanced and innovative market model to offer a premier venue for listing and trading the stocks of small companies. The venue utilizes the trading, connectivity and routing technologies of the NYSE platform and offers superior price discovery, superior liquidity and reduced trading volatility. Listed companies benefit from issuer-selected Designated Market Makers (DMM) that utilize world-class NYSE trading systems to discover and improve prices, dampen volatility, add liquidity and enhance value. In addition, NYSE MKT-listed companies gain access to the brand visibility and are eligible for the issuer services enjoyed by the NYSE Euronext community.
“We congratulate NanoViricides on their listing with NYSE MKT,” said Scott Cutler, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Listings, NYSE Euronext. “Our community ranges across a variety of industries and it is always exciting for a biotech company like NanoViricides to benefit from our platform and further support their research and development.”
“This move to the Exchange comes at a time when the Company is making excellent progress towards its goal of taking FluCide®, its broad-spectrum anti-influenza drug, into human clinical trials as soon as feasible,” said Eugene Seymour, MD, MPH, CEO of the Company, adding, “In addition, construction of the cGMP pilot manufacturing and R&D facility is proceeding on schedule. The Company now has over $22M in cash that is expected to enable us to complete the FluCide Phase I and II clinical trials. The Company plans to move DengueCide®, a drug for dengue/dengue hemorrhagic fever into human clinical trials following injectable FluCide. DengueCide is in advanced pre-clinical development stage and has already received an Orphan Drug designation from the US FDA. Following these, we also have Oral FluCide, HIVCide, HerpeCide, and EKCCide at various stages in preclinical development. We fully expect these drug candidates to enter human clinical trials, based on the strong effectiveness and safety we have seen so far. Together these drug candidates represent a market size of over $40 Billion. In addition, we know that as a good drug becomes available against a disease, the market size for it expands dramatically. We look forward to realizing the great potential of our Company as we list on the New York Stock Exchange MKT.”
The Company also announces that it has selected J. Streicher & Co., LLC as its Designated Market Maker on NYSE-MKT.
NanoViricides Pipeline
NanoViricides is developing broad-spectrum anti-influenza drugs as part of its rich drug pipeline. The Company believes that its FluCide™ drug candidates will be effective against most if not all influenza viruses, including the H7N9 bird flu, H3N2 or H1N1 epidemic viruses, H5N1 bird flu, seasonal influenzas, as well as novel influenza viruses. This is because FluCide is based on the Company’s biomimetic technology, mimicking the natural sialic acid receptors for the influenza virus on the surface of a nanoviricide® polymeric micelle. It is important to note that all influenza viruses bind to the sialic acid receptors, even if they rapidly mutate. The FluCide drug candidates have already shown strong effectiveness against H1N1 and H3N2 influenza viruses in highly lethal animal models. The injectable FluCide drug candidates have shown 1,000X greater viral load reduction as compared to oseltamivir (Tamiflu®), the current standard of care, in a highly lethal influenza infection animal model. The Company believes that these animal model results should translate readily into humans.
NanoViricides has also developed an oral drug candidate against influenza. This oral version is also dramatically more effective than TamiFlu in the animals given a lethal influenza virus infection. This oral FluCide may be the very first nanomedicine that is effective when taken by mouth.
In addition, NanoViricides has developed drug candidates against Dengue, HIV/AIDS, Herpes, and Ocular Viral Diseases that have shown strong effectiveness in relevant animal and/or cell culture models.