Altshuler Shaham and Company Stakeholders Lead $5.15 Million Investment in Kadimastem

NESS ZIONA, Israel, October 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Israeli biotechnology company Kadimastem (TASE: KDST) announced today the completion of an investment round of $5.15 million, by way of private placement, at a share price of 65 agorot.

Participants in the round include the Altshuler Shaham Investment House ($2.5 million), which is thereby increasing its holdings in the company to around 20%, as well as the company's controlling shareholders, Prof. Michel and Claire Revel ($500K) and Julien Ruggieri ($600K), as well as company stakeholders (Mr. Yigal Fatran, member of the BOD of the company; Dr. Michal Izrael, VP R&D for ALS and Neurodegenerative Diseases; Dr. Arik Hasson, VP R&D; and Mr. Yehuda Feinberg, CFO) and additional private investors ($1.55 million).

The amount raised is planned to be sufficient to enable the company to reach product efficacy results from cohorts A and B in the Phase I/IIa clinical trial in ALS patients; these results are very significant. The company expects to reach this milestone within the coming year and a quarter.

The Phase I/IIa clinical trial is being conducted by the Department of Neurology of the Hadassah Ein Karem Medical Center, expected to include 21 participants. The objective of the trial is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the company's product, AstroRx®, in patients.

Until reaching the milestone of receiving efficacy results from cohorts A and B, the company will not raise new equity financing, except for the following cases: Financing from a pharma or biotech company with a market cap of at least $100M, or within the framework of co-funding of the company will receive a grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (co-funding requirement of 20%), at a share price higher than the share price of the current financing round. In the event that the company raises new equity not under the above terms, the holdings of the investors from the current round will be preserved. That said, by a decision of a majority of the investors in this round this condition can be waived.

Yossi Ben Yossef, CEO of Kadimastem, noted, "I am happy that we've completed this significant raise, led by Altshuler Shaham and company controlling shareholders Prof. Michel and Claire Revel and Julien Ruggieri. Stopping or slowing down the disease progression in cohorts A and B in the in the Phase I/IIa clinical trial in ALS patients will represent an accomplishment on a global scale."

About Kadimastem 

Kadimastem Ltd. (http://www.Kadimastem.com) is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing industrial regenerative therapies based on human embryonic stem cells (hESC) for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, as well as diabetes. The company was founded in 2009 by Prof. Michel Revel and Yossi Ben Yosef and is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: KDST). The company's chairman is Dr. Eli Opper, formerly the Chief Scientist of Israel's Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor, and the company's Scientific Advisory Board consists of leading scientists and pioneers in their fields. The company's investors, in addition to its founders, include Altshuler Shaham Investment House, foreign investors (Julien Ruggieri and Avi Meizler) and additional institutional investors. 

Kadimastem was founded on the basis of patent-protected technologies developed in Prof. Michel Revel's laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Based on the company's unique technological platform, Kadimastem develops regenerative therapies to repair and replace tissues and organs by using functioning cells differentiated from stem cells. The company focuses on transplanting healthy brain cells to support the survivability of damaged nerve cells as cell therapy for ALS and transplanting insulin-producing pancreatic cell for the treatment of insulin-dependent diabetes. 

Kadimastem has an extensive scientific advisory board, featuring prominent scientists and pioneers: In the embryonic stem cell field - Professor Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor, a world renowned expert and pioneer in pluripotent stem cell research and former head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Rambam Medical Center, serves both as a director and a senior strategic consultant in the company, and Prof. Benjamin Reubinoff, Director of the Hadassah Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center and Senior Physician at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Hadassah University Medical Center; in the neurodegenerative disease field - Prof. Tamir Ben Hur, Head of the Department of Neurology and Division of Medical Neurosciences at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem; and in the diabetes field, Prof. Shimon Efrat, professor of Human Molecular Genetics and Juvenile Diabetes at Tel Aviv University and a world renowned expert in cell replacement therapy for diabetes, and Prof. Eddy Karnieli, former Director of the Institute for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the Rambam Medical Center and a world renowned expert in these fields. 

Contact: 
Yehuda Feinberg
Tel: +972-73-7971604
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Kadimastem