XTL Bio places $9.6 million of shares

Israel-headquartered XTL Biopharmaceuticals says that it has entered into definitive agreements with institutional investors relating to a private placement of an aggregate of $9.6 million in gross proceeds of ordinary shares, represented by American Depositary Receipts. The lead investors in the transaction are Perceptive Life Sciences Fund, Quogue Capital , SCO Capital Partners and Versant Capital.

Ron Bentsur, chief executive of XTL, commented: "following this offering, we believe that we will have sufficient capital to execute our business plan and, more importantly, to reach what we believe could be a major value-enhancing milestone - the completion of our on-going randomized, placebo-controlled Phase IIb trial of bicifadine in diabetic neuropathic pain."

Pursuant to the purchase agreements, the company will, following the closing, issue around 7.1 million ADRs, representing about 71 million ordinary shares. No warrants were issued in the transaction. XTL has agreed to register the ordinary shares and list the ADRs for trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Closing of the transaction is conditional upon, among other things, the delisting of the company's ordinary shares from the Official List of the UK Listing Authority, scheduled to take place on October 31.