SHELTON, CONNECTICUT -- Monday, May, 14, 2018 -- NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE MKT: NNVC) (the "Company") reports that it is financially sound and that its drug candidates in the HerpeCide™ program are moving towards the clinical stage at a reasonable pace.
NanoViricides reports that it does not know of the reasons for a recent sharp decline in its stock price. The Company's current drug candidates in the HerpeCide™ program are moving towards the clinical stage steadily. The Company is diligently working towards obtaining all the information that we will need for filing our first Investigational New Drug application (IND).
The Company has previously reported excellent results in human skin study for its shingles drug candidates.
The Company recently reported that these drug candidates were shown to have an extremely good safety profile in a preliminary rat toxicology study. This has paved the way for moving the drug candidate(s) into formal GLP Safety/Tox Package studies.
The Company has scaled up production of its drug candidates substantially. We believe we have the ability to make the required estimated quantity for the Safety/Tox study in just a few production batches. This estimate was revised upwards to ~750g, due to the extremely strong safety profile of the drug candidates observed in the preliminary safety/toxicology study.
The Company's search for a new CEO with strong pharmaceutical industry background was begun prior to Dr. Seymour's retirement. It has been accelerated and the Executive Search Committee reports that it is now in due diligence phase. In the interim, the Board has appointed Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President and Chairman, as the acting CEO in January, following retirement of Dr. Eugene Seymour.
The Company has a continuity of leadership in place after Dr. Seymour's retirement, with the temporary appointment of Dr. Diwan as the interim CEO. Dr. Diwan and Dr. Seymour together previously constituted the Executive Committee, and thus, Dr. Diwan has been involved in strategic decision-making, as well as fund-raising activities since the founding of the Company. The company's executive committee works with the senior leadership and additional consultants to develop and execute the Company's business strategy and activities.
The Company is financially stable, and believes that it has sufficient financing available for more than one year of operations.
Dr. Seymour has stated that he was resigning for personal reasons and to make room for a pharmaceutical industry executive with experience in drug development through regulatory stages. The separation agreement with Dr. Seymour was executed on May 1, 2018. In consideration of Dr. Seymour's role in the Company as a Founder and in building the Company from scratch in his many long years of service to the Company and its shareholders, the Company agreed to provide Dr. Seymour with severance payments equivalent to his then-current salary until December 31, 2018, and to grant him 250,000 options with an exercise price equal to $2.00 per share. More complete information has been filed in an 8-K current report.
The Company believes that once it has engaged into a meaningful investor outreach program, it will have the ability to tell its story more effectively to the investors, buyers and sellers alike.
About NanoViricidesFDA refers to US Food and Drug Administration. EMA refers to the European Union’s office of European Medical Agency.