Newron Pharmaceuticals Raises CHF18.6 Million In Private Placement To Existing And New Institutional Shareholders In Europe And The U.S.

Milan, Italy – April 7, 2014 – Newron Pharmaceuticals S.p.A. (“Newron”), a research and development company focused on novel CNS and pain therapies, announces that it has executed a capital increase resulting in gross proceeds of CHF18.6 million, following the subscription by institutional investors of 1,183,597 newly issued shares. The capital increase was approved at the Company’s Extraordinary Shareholder’s Meeting on Thursday, 27 March 2014. Once issued, the new shares will be immediately and freely tradable.

The fundraising was supported by current institutional shareholders and institutional investors joining from Europe and the USA, including J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Aviva, Investor AB and Swisscanto. The subscription price was set at CHF 15.75 per share, marginally below the closing price of Newron’s shares on April 3, 2014, of CHF15.80. The net proceeds from the fundraising will be primarily used to accelerate the development of Newron’s pipeline of innovative CNS therapeutics, including its three Phase II compounds for orphan indications; sNN0031 for patients with Parkinson’s disease no longer responding to oral therapy, sNN0029 for patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), sarizotan for patients suffering from Rett Syndrome, as well as NW-3509, its compound in development as add-on therapy for patients with schizophrenia.

Stefan Weber, CEO of Newron, commented: “We would like to thank our existing and new shareholders for supporting the Company’s strategy. Newron is at a very exciting stage in its evolution. We have a promising pipeline of novel CNS compounds and our lead candidate, safinamide for early and advanced Parkinson's disease (PD), has been submitted for approval in Europe. An NDA for safinamide will shortly be filed with the US FDA.”

Roberto Galli, Newron’s VP Finance, added: “The funds raised will enable us to progress development of our orphan drug candidates and NW-3509, our highly innovative add-on therapy for schizophrenia, for which we plan to start a Phase IIa study in Q4 2014.”

Closing of the transaction will be subject to customary Italian and Swiss regulatory requirements. The new shares will be listed and traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the same ISIN as the Company’s existing shares (ISIN: IT0004147952) on or around April 9, 2014.

Bank Vontobel, WG Partners and Roth Capital Partners acted as advisors to Newron in connection with the transaction.

About Newron Pharmaceuticals Newron (SIX: NWRN) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapies for patients with diseases of the Central Nervous System (CNS) and pain. The Company is headquartered in Bresso near Milan, Italy. Following the submission of the Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for safinamide for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December 2013, as well as to Swissmedic in March, 2014, Newron is working to complete the global filing of the compound, together with its partners. Zambon Group has the rights to commercialize safinamide globally, excluding Japan and other key Asian territories where Meiji Seika has the rights to develop and commercialize the compound. Newron’s additional projects are based on highly promising treatments for rare disease patients and are at various stages of clinical development, including sNN0031 for patients with Parkinson’s disease, non-responsive to oral drug treatments, sarizotan for patients with Rett syndrome, sNN0029 for patients with ALS and ralfinamide for patients with specific rare pain indications. Newron is concurrently developing NW-3509 as the potential first add-on therapy for the treatment of patients with positive symptoms of schizophrenia. www.newron.com

For more information, contact:

Media
Investors and analysts
Italy
Stefan Weber - CEO
Phone: +39 02 6103 46 26
E-mail: pr@newron.com

UK/Global media
Julia Phillips
FTI Consulting
Phone: +44 (0)20 3727 1000

Switzerland
Martin Meier-Pfister IRF Communications
Phone: +41 43 244 81 40
Stefan Weber - CEO
Phone: +39 02 6103 46 30
E-mail: ir@newron.com

Help employers find you! Check out all the jobs and post your resume.