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Opthea raises $45M to advance novel therapy for eye diseases

Published: 11:30 28 Apr 2017 AEST

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Opthea is progressing plans to initiate a Phase 2B wet AMD clinical trial

Opthea (ASX:OPT) has completed a $45 million capital raising after receiving strong demand from international and domestic healthcare dedicated investment funds.

The new funds will enable the acceleration of Opthea’s clinical development strategy for OPT-302, its novel therapy for wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME).

Both eye diseases have a major impact on the quality of life for patients and represents a leading cause of vision loss in the elderly and working-age population globally.

The capital raising was conducted at an offer price of $0.93 per share, representing a 14.8% premium to Opthea’s last traded share priced on 29 March 2017.

The capital raising was significantly oversubscribed with strong demand from healthcare investment funds from Australia, the U.S. and the UK.

The strong support received for the raising follows the reporting of positive data from Opthea’s Phase 1/2A clinical trial with OPT-302 in wet AMD patients.

Opthea is now actively progressing plans to initiate a 350 patient Phase 2B wet AMD clinical trial, as well as additional Phase 2A clinical studies in DME and wet AMD patients

The company plans to initiate patient recruitment into the Phase 2B wet AMD and Phase 2A clinical trials in 2H 2017.

Opthea is now well capitalised into the year 2021, which positions the company to advance its treatment to multiple clinical inflection points.

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