Synairgen completes a successful equity placing to fund the company’s trial for COVID-19 patients

March 2020 — Synairgen plc has raised US$17.6 million to fund the company’s trial for COVID-19 patients.

Synairgen is a drug discovery and development company founded by University of Southampton Professors Stephen Holgate, Donna Davies and Ratko Djukanovic. The business, focused primarily on severe asthma and COPD, uses its differentiating human biology BioBank platform and world-renowned international academic Key Opinion Leader network to discover and develop novel therapies for respiratory disease. Leveraging its scientific and clinical facilities at Southampton General Hospital, the company uses in vitro and ex vivo models to progress opportunities into clinical development. The biobank of human samples is used in these models to increase confidence in the likelihood of successful drug development.

Our role in the transaction

Oaklins Cavendish’s sister firm finnCap, based in the UK, advised Synairgen on its oversubscribed equity fundraising to fund the company’s trial of SNG001 (inhaled formulation of interferon-beta-1a) in COVID-19 patients, manufacture of the drug and to strengthen the company’s balance sheet.