OpGen

Last modified by Asif Farooqui on 2019/12/09 07:47

Overview

OpGen (OPGN) was incorporated in Delaware in 2001. The Company’s headquarters are in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and its principal operations are in Gaithersburg, Maryland and Woburn, Massachusetts. The Company also has operations in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Company operates in one business segment.

OpGen is a precision medicine company using molecular diagnostics and informatics to help combat infectious disease. The Company is developing molecular information products and services for global healthcare settings, helping to guide clinicians with more rapid and actionable information about life threatening infections, improve patient outcomes, and decrease the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms, or MDROs. Its proprietary DNA tests and informatics address the rising threat of antibiotic resistance by helping physicians and other healthcare providers optimize care decisions for patients with acute infections.1

The Company’s molecular diagnostics and informatics offerings combine its Acuitas DNA tests and Acuitas Lighthouse informatics platform for use with its proprietary, curated MDRO knowledgebase. The Company is working to deliver its products and services, some in development, to a global network of customers and partners. These include:

  • Its Acuitas DNA tests provide rapid microbial identification and antibiotic resistance gene information. These products include its Acuitas Rapid Test for complicated urinary tract infection in development, the QuickFISH family of FDA-cleared and CE-marked diagnostics used to rapidly detect pathogens in positive blood cultures, and its Acuitas Resistome Tests for genetic analysis of hospital surveillance isolates.
  • Its Acuitas Lighthouse informatics systems are cloud-based HIPAA compliant informatics offerings that combine clinical lab test results with patient and hospital information to provide analytics and actionable insights to help manage MDROs in the hospital and patient care environment. Components of its informatics systems are the Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase, a proprietary data warehouse of genomic data matched with antibiotic susceptibility information for bacterial pathogens and its Acuitas Lighthouse informatics, which can be specific to a healthcare facility or collaborator, such as a pharmaceutical company.

The Company’s operations are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The risks include rapid technology changes, the need to manage growth, the need to retain key personnel, the need to protect intellectual property and the need to raise additional capital financing on terms acceptable to the Company. The Company’s success depends, in part, on its ability to develop and commercialize its proprietary technology as well as raise additional capital.

Recent Developments

Since inception, the Company has incurred, and continues to incur, significant losses from operations. The Company has funded its operations primarily through external investor financing arrangements. The following financing transactions took place during 2017:

  • On July 18, 2017, the Company closed its July 2017 Public Offering of 18,164,195 units at $0.40 per unit, and 6,835,805 pre‑funded units at $0.39 per pre-funded unit, raising gross proceeds of approximately $10 million and net proceeds of approximately $8.7 million. jVen Capital, an affiliate of Evan Jones, the Company’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and three employees of the Company participated in the July 2017 Public Offering. Each unit included one share of common stock and one common warrant to purchase one share of common stock at an exercise price of $0.425 per share. Each pre-funded unit included one pre-funded warrant to purchase one share of common stock for an exercise price of $0.01 per share, and one common warrant to purchase one share of common stock at an exercise price of $0.425 per share. The common warrants are exercisable immediately and have a five-year term from the date of issuance. Approximately $1 million of the gross proceeds was used to repay the outstanding Bridge Financing Notes to jVen Capital in July 2017.
  • On May 31, 2017, the Company entered into a Note Purchase Agreement with jVen Capital, under which jVen Capital agreed to provide bridge financing in an aggregate principal amount of up to $1,500,000 to the Company in up to three separate tranches of Bridge Financing Notes. The interest rate on each Bridge Financing Note was ten percent (10%) per annum (subject to increase upon an event of default). In connection with the Bridge Financing Notes, the Company issued jVen Capital stock purchase warrants to acquire 140,845 shares with an exercise price of $0.78 per share, and stock purchase warrants to acquire 158,730 shares at an exercise price of $0.69 per share. As of June 30, 2017, the Company had drawn down on the first of three Bridge Financing Notes, with $1,000,000 remaining capacity available. The Company drew down on the second Bridge Financing Note on July 5, 2017 and the third Bridge Financing Note was never issued. The outstanding Bridge Financing Notes were repaid in full upon the closing of the July 2017 Public Offering.
  • On June 6, 2017, as amended on June 28, 2017, the Company issued the amended and restated MGHIF Note to MGHIF, which extended the maturity date of the MGHIF Note from July 14, 2017 to July 14, 2018. In return for MGHIF’s consent to such extension, the Company increased the interest rate of the MGHIF Note to 10% per annum and issued warrants to purchase shares of common stock to MGHIF equal to 20% of the principal balance of the MGHIF Note, plus interest accrued thereon, as of June 28, 2017.
  • During the six months ended June, 30, 2017 the Company sold approximately 4.0 million shares of its common stock under its at the market offering resulting in aggregate net proceeds to the Company of approximately $3.4 million, and gross proceeds of $3.6 million.

In early June 2017, the Company commenced a restructuring of its operations to improve efficiency and reduce its cost structure. The Company expects these actions to reduce operating expenses by 25-30 percent by the fourth quarter of 2017. The restructuring plans anticipate that the Company will consolidate operations for FDA-cleared and CE marked products and research and development activities for the Acuitas Rapid Test in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and reduce the size of its commercial organization while the Company works to complete the development of its Acuitas Rapid Test and Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase products and services in development.

There were approximately $128,000 of one-time termination benefits that were recognized during the three and six months ended June 30, 2017 related to the restructuring. The Company does not anticipate any further one-time termination benefits related to the restructuring plan. Retention agreements were issued to certain employees in which retention bonuses are earned and paid upon the completion of a designated service period. The service period end dates range from the end of August to the end of December 2017. The Company expects to incur total retention expense of approximately $63,000 of which approximately $13,000 was incurred during the three and six months ended June 30, 2017. The future minimum lease payments for the Woburn facility were approximately $2 million as of June 30, 2017. A liability for costs that will continue to be incurred under a contract for its remaining term without economic benefit to the entity shall be recognized at the cease-use date. If the contract is an operating lease the fair value of the liability at the cease-use date shall be determined based on the remaining lease rentals, adjusted for the effects of any prepaid or deferred items recognized under the lease, and reduced by estimated sublease rentals that could be reasonably obtained for the property. The Company expects the cease-use date for the Woburn facility to be in Q1 of 2018. OpGen has not estimated the contract termination costs associated with this lease given that OpGen has not yet reached the cease use date and given that OpGen has only begun preliminary sublease pursuit activities. The company do not believe there will be significant additional costs related to restructuring outside of what is described herein.

References

  1. ^ https://fintel.io/doc/sec-opgn-opgen-10k-annual-report-2018-march-29-18031
Tags: US:OPGN
Created by Asif Farooqui on 2019/12/09 07:44
     
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