Dallas, Texas 10/07/2013 (Financialstrend) – On September 5, Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRX) announced that it is planning to offer 8.8 million shares of its common stock in order to raise funds to the tune of $14.2 million after expenses. The offer price has been fixed at $1.98 per share. Post this offering, a total of 52.8 million shares of outstanding common stock would be left in the company treasury.
The development stage pharmaceutical firm has plans of using the proceeds of the sale into continuing the clinical trial of its three strong target drugs “Firdapse”, CPP-115 and CPP-109.
The company bought the North American licenses of Fridapse from BioMarin in October 2003. The drug is a proprietary combination of “amifampridine phosphate”. It is chemically named “3,4-diaminopyridine phosphate”. As part of the licensing agreement CPRX had agreed to foot the bill for the testing of this drug through the next phases of clinical trial. Hence CPRX is now working on handholding the test drug through the Phase 3 clinical testing for effectiveness to treat “Myasthenic Syndrome” the symptoms of which include acute muscle weakness.
The phase 3 trial involves 36-patients who are spread across twelve cities in United States and Europe. The scope of the trail is expected to increase by an additional 15 sites covering South America and Canada. As per published timelines, the results for this critical phase of testing will be out by second quarter of 2014. CPRX is racing against time to successfully conclude the testing since the “Amifampridine phosphate” composition has been earmarked as a Orphan Drug by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. The orphan drag tab covers the treatment of treat “Myasthenic Syndrome”. Hence if CPRX does come out with a successful trail results leading to a patent on Firdapse before any other firm, then they will be entitled to an “exclusive seven-year marketing window” to sell that drug.