Leiden, The Netherlands, 17 May 2017: Pharming Group N.V. (“Pharming” or “the Company”) (EURONEXT: PHARM) today announced that the supervisory board and the management board have jointly decided to withdraw the agenda items related to the Amendment of Pharming’s Articles of Association from the agenda of the AGM scheduled for Wednesday, 24 May 2017 at 14:00 hours.
The proposed amendment of the Articles of Association included the increase of the authorized share capital of the Company by 150,000,000 shares to 950,000,000 shares. The rationale behind the proposed increase of the authorized share capital was to create sufficient shares to enable the Company (i) to meet its reserve obligations in respect of the potential numbers of shares which might be required to convert all convertible bonds and warrants including amortization share payments in respect of the Amortizing Bonds due 2017/2018; (ii) to take advantage of new opportunities for acquisition of additional products, where such new products can be obtained on advantageous terms and (iii) to invest in increasing its own technology and commercialization capabilities to accelerate growth in revenues.
On 15 May Pharming entered into a refinancing agreement with Orbimed Advisors to redeem the Amortizing Bonds due 2017/2018. The refinance of the Company’s debt by means of a 48 months senior secured debt from Orbimed Advisors has enabled the Company to recover 115.0 million shares (net of new warrants), which shares were previously reserved for conversion and/or repayment of the Amortizing Bonds due 2017/2018, and has eliminated the need to repay part of these Bonds in shares at a significant discount to the current market price. More information can be found on Pharming’s website at www.pharming.com .
As a result of the entering into the refinancing agreement and the consequent recovery of the allotted shares, the supervisory board and the management board are of the view that there is no longer a requirement to increase the authorized share capital and have therefore decided to withdraw the agenda items related to the Amendment of Pharming’s Articles of Association (5a and 5b).
About Pharming Group N.V.
Pharming is a specialty pharmaceutical company developing innovative products for the safe, effective treatment of rare diseases and unmet medical needs. Pharming’s lead product, RUCONEST® (conestat alfa) is a recombinant human C1 esterase inhibitor approved for the treatment of acute Hereditary Angioedema (“HAE”) attacks in patients in Europe, the US, Israel and South Korea. The product is available on a named-patient basis in other territories where it has not yet obtained marketing authorization.
RUCONEST® is commercialized by Pharming in Algeria, Andorra, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Morocco, the Netherlands, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Syria, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Yemen.
RUCONEST® is distributed by Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (publ) (SS: SOBI) in the other EU countries, and in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Norway, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.
RUCONEST® is distributed in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Venezuela by Cytobioteck, in South Korea by HyupJin Corporation and in Israel by Megapharm. RUCONEST® is also being investigated in a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of HAE in young children (2-13 years of age) and evaluated for various additional follow-on indications.
Pharming’s technology platform includes a unique, GMP-compliant, validated process for the production of pure recombinant human proteins that has proven capable of producing industrial quantities of high quality recombinant human proteins in a more economical and less immunogenetic way compared with current cell-line based methods. Leads for enzyme replacement therapy (“ERT”) for Pompé and Fabry’s diseases are being optimized at present, with additional programs not involving ERT also being explored at an early stage at present.
Pharming has a long term partnership with the China State Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry (“CSIPI”), a Sinopharm company, for joint global development of new products, starting with recombinant human Factor VIII for the treatment of Haemophilia A. Pre-clinical development and manufacturing will take place to global standards at CSIPI and are funded by CSIPI. Clinical development will be shared between the partners with each partner taking the costs for their territories under the partnership.
Pharming has declared that the Netherlands is its “Home Member State” pursuant to the amended article 5:25a paragraph 2 of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act.
Additional information is available on the Pharming website: www.pharming.com
