Reneuron Group (LON:RENE) , the AIM listed biotechnology group behind the development of treatments using stem cell technology, has raised £10m before expenses in a share placing priced at 5.5p per share. The move, which remains subject to shareholder approval and foresees a three stage admission of shares to trading during the course of December, also saw ReNeuron’s directors buy up stock at the same price. The company said the cash boost would give it sufficient working capital to fund the pre-clinical and clinical development costs of its core therapeutic programmes and other general business costs for the next two years. After that, it is aiming to secure revenues from out-license deals with commercial development partners on the back of those programmes.

ReNeuron said it would also use the proceeds of the fundraising to complete manufacturing optimisation and scale-up of CTXcryo, the long shelf-life variant of its lead CTX cell product. Cash has also been earmarked to build out the company’s capabilities in clinical, manufacturing and business development, at both executive and non-executive level. Shares in ReNeuron fell by 13% to 5.9p during morning trading.

Elsewhere today, the company announced that its losses in the first half of the year to September 30 had widened to £2.5m from £1.9m last time. During the period the company began a landmark UK first-in-man clinical trial of its ReN001 stem cell therapy for stroke. Post-period end, the first patient has received the treatment and an initial safety review is set to take place later this month. Elsewhere, further positive pre-clinical efficacy data was presented with ReN009 stem cell therapy for peripheral arterial disease with a first-in-man clinical trial planned for early 2012. Pre-clinical development of ReN003 therapy for retinitis pigmentosa is also progressing to plan ahead of an initial clinical trial planned for 2012.

Professor Trevor Jones, the chairman of ReNeuron, said: “The period under review has been one of very significant progress for our business, culminating last month in the treatment of the first patient in the PISCES clinical trial of our ReN001 stroke therapy. This takes our stroke programme into its clinical development stage and places ReNeuron in the forefront of the development of treatments for disabled stroke patients using neural stem cells. Our other core therapeutic programmes continue to progress to plan and we…

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