PLANEGG (dpa-AFX) - The drug researcher Morphosys has raised fresh money from investors with a capital increase. The Bavarians want to use the money to accelerate their own product pipeline and the market launch of Pelabresib, currently the company's greatest hope. A total of 3.4 million shares were placed with institutional investors at a price of 30 euros each, the SDax company announced on Thursday morning in Planegg near Munich. The Group put the gross proceeds at around 102.7 million euros. Morphosys shares initially fell by almost ten percent in the morning. Most recently, the drop amounted to around four and a half percent.

The placement price corresponds to a discount of 2.8 percent on the volume-weighted five-day average price on Xetra. Shareholders' subscription rights were excluded from the issue. The new shares are fully entitled to dividends for the current year and are to be traded from around December 19.

Morphosys had announced the capital measure the previous evening and stated that it would have a liquidity requirement of around 250 million euros in 2024, including additional planned cost-cutting measures. The company is in the red due to high research costs, including for the promising drug pelabresib. The management had therefore already cut back this year and, among other things, cut almost a fifth of the jobs at the company headquarters.

Morphosys now wants to use the new money to push ahead with the approval of the cancer drug Pelabresib. According to previous information, Morphosys intends to submit the corresponding applications to the drug authorities in the USA and Europe in mid-2024. The drug is to be used as a first-line therapy for myelofibrosis. This is a rare blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow.

The Group recently presented detailed results of the approval-relevant trial with the promising drug at an expert conference in the USA - these were considered promising by some analysts and experts and were met with a firework display on the stock market.

Apart from pelabresib, the proceeds from the capital increase will be used for the ongoing clinical development of other product candidates "up to regulatory approval", Morphosys further announced. The money will also be used for general corporate purposes and to strengthen the company's finances.

Hopes of success with pelabresib have also generated a great deal of excitement and at times disappointment on the stock market this year. Nevertheless, the Morphosys share price has risen significantly over the year, and despite the current losses, the gain since the turn of the year amounts to more than 150 percent. However, at just over EUR 33, the share price is still a long way off the EUR 146 reached at the beginning of 2020.

The slump in the share price in recent years was mainly due to the approximately 1.7 billion dollar acquisition of US company Constellation Pharmaceuticals in 2021, which Morphosys also used to acquire Pelabresib. The costly deal, which the Group managed with the help of US financing partner Royalty Pharma, was initially met with some skepticism by investors./tav/stk