Acasti Pharma (ACST) has completed its acquisition of Grace Therapeutics through a merger of Grace Therapeutics and an Acasti Pharma subsidiary.
As a result, Acasti now owns Grace’s entire therapeutic pipeline that includes three clinical-stage and multiple pre-clinical stage assets.
Grace’s intellectual property portfolio consists of over 40 granted and pending patents in various jurisdictions worldwide.
This successful merger positions Acasti to build a specialty pharma company focused on rare diseases.
Based on management’s current forecasts, Acasti expects to have enough cash on its balance sheet following the merger to provide at least two years of operating runway.
Jan D’Alvise, Acasti CEO, commented on the merger.
“We believe the Grace acquisition will be truly transformative, creating new and exciting opportunities for us in sizable markets with substantial unmet medical needs,” she said.
“Grace’s technologies,” she added, “enable us to customize the formulation of marketed drugs in new ways that have the potential to address significant unmet medical needs by achieving faster onset of action, enhanced efficacy, reduced side effects, and more convenient drug delivery.”
Grace’s product candidates aim to improve clinical outcomes by applying proprietary formulation and drug delivery technologies to existing pharmaceutical compounds.
Acasti has issued a total of 145,929,867 common shares to Grace stockholders in consideration for the acquisition.
Acasti is a late-stage specialty pharma company with drug delivery capability and technologies addressing rare and orphan diseases.
Acasti Pharma Inc. (ACST) is currently down 1.82 per cent, trading at $0.54 per share as of 1:51 pm ET.