Humanigen Announces $80 Million Loan Facility from Hercules Capital

Company intends to use funds to support lenzilumab manufacturing and commercialization

Humanigen, Inc. (Nasdaq: HGEN) (“Humanigen”), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on preventing and treating an immune hyper-response called ‘cytokine storm’ with its lead drug candidate, lenzilumab™, has obtained a term loan facility from Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC), a leader in customizing debt financing for companies in the life sciences market. Under the terms of the facility, Hercules will provide Humanigen up to $80 million of secured debt financing.

“The term loan facility provides working capital to support the production of lenzilumab, strengthens our balance sheet and increases our financial flexibility as we prepare for the potential Emergency Use Authorization and commercial launch of lenzilumab in 2021,” said Cameron Durrant, MD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer, Humanigen.

The facility consists of a $25 million initial term loan, with up to an additional $55.0 million available for future draws subject to achievement of future milestones and satisfaction of other conditions. The facility provides for an interest-only period and the four-year term is extendable under certain conditions. Loans under the facility are secured by the company’s assets.

"Hercules is excited to be partnering with Humanigen as it advances lenzilumab for COVID-19 and other indications. This structured financing represents a significant commitment from Hercules, which is consistent with our goal of supporting innovative life sciences companies,” said Himani Bhalla, Principal at the Life Sciences group at Hercules. “This is an example of the breadth of our platform and our ability to finance life sciences companies through all stages of development.”

About Humanigen, Inc.

Humanigen, Inc. is developing its portfolio of clinical and pre-clinical therapies for the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases via its novel, cutting-edge GM-CSF neutralization, and gene-knockout platforms. Humanigen believes that its GM-CSF neutralization and gene-editing platform technologies have the potential to reduce the inflammatory cascade associated with coronavirus infection. Humanigen’s immediate focus is to prevent or minimize the cytokine release syndrome that precedes severe lung dysfunction and ARDS in serious cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Humanigen is also focused on creating next-generation combinatory gene-edited CAR-T therapies using strategies to improve efficacy while employing GM-CSF gene knockout technologies to control toxicity. In addition, Humanigen is developing its own portfolio of proprietary first-in-class EphA3-CAR-T for various solid cancers and EMR1-CAR-T for various eosinophilic disorders. Humanigen is also exploring the effectiveness of its GM-CSF neutralization technologies (either through the use of lenzilumab as a neutralizing antibody or through GM-CSF gene knockout) in combination with other CAR-T, bispecific or natural killer (NK) T cell engaging immunotherapy treatments to break the efficacy/toxicity linkage, including to prevent and/or treat graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Additionally, Humanigen and Kite, a Gilead Company, are evaluating lenzilumab in combination with Yescarta® (axicabtagene ciloleucel) in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma in a clinical collaboration. For more information, visit www.humanigen.com and follow Humanigen on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Contacts

Humanigen Media
Grace Catlett
RXMD
Gcatlett@rxmedyn.com
516-318-8563

Humanigen Investors

Alan Lada
Solebury Trout
ALada@SoleburyTrout.com
617-221-8006