GRI Bio Raises $13.9 Million in Gross Proceeds Since the Beginning of 2024

GRI Bio, Inc. recently announced it closed its previously announced transaction involving the exercise of certain existing warrants to purchase an aggregate of 762,236 shares of the company’s common stock originally issued by GRI Bio in February 2024.

The gross proceeds to the company from the exercise of warrants were approximately $0.8 million, prior to deducting placement agent fees and offering expenses payable by the company. Including the gross proceeds from this offering, the company has raised approximately $13.9 million in gross proceeds since the beginning of 2024.

H.C. Wainwright & Co. acted as the exclusive placement agent for the offering.

The shares of common stock issued upon exercise of the existing warrants are registered pursuant to an effective registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-276205).

Marc Hertz, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of GRI Bio, said “The proceeds from the financings we have completed since the start of this year have greatly strengthened our balance sheet and are estimated to have provided the necessary funding to advance the development of our lead program into the middle of the first quarter of 2025. With these proceeds in hand and the continued progress toward interim and topline data for our lead program, expected in the coming quarters, we believe we are well positioned to realize the full potential of GRI-0621 to provide significant benefit to IPF patients.”

In consideration for the immediate exercise of the existing warrants for cash, the company issued new unregistered Series D-1 warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 762,236 shares of the company’s common stock and new unregistered Series D-2 warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 762,236 shares of the company’s common stock. The new Series D-1 and D-2 warrants are immediately exercisable at an exercise price of $1.00 per share. The Series D-1 warrants will have a term of five years from the issuance date and the Series D-2 warrants will have a term of eighteen months from the issuance date.

The new Series D-1 and D-2 warrants described above were offered in a private placement under Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act), and Regulation D promulgated thereunder and, along with the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the new warrants, have not been registered under the Securities Act, or applicable state securities laws. Accordingly, the new warrants issued in the private placement and the shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of the new warrants may not be offered or sold in the US except pursuant to an effective registration statement or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and such applicable state securities laws.

GRI Bio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on fundamentally changing the way inflammatory, fibrotic and autoimmune diseases are treated. GRI Bio’s therapies are designed to target the activity of NKT cells, which are key regulators earlier in the inflammatory cascade, to interrupt disease progression and restore the immune system to homeostasis. NKT cells are innate-like T cells that share properties of both NK and T cells and are a functional link between the innate and adaptive immune responses. Type 1 invariant (iNKT) cells play a critical role in propagating the injury, inflammatory response, and fibrosis observed in inflammatory and fibrotic indications. GRI Bio’s lead program, GRI-0621, is an inhibitor of iNKT cell activity and is being developed as a novel oral therapeutic for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a serious disease with significant unmet need. The Company is also developing a pipeline of novel type 2 NKT agonists for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus. Additionally, with a library of over 500 proprietary compounds, GRI Bio has the ability to fuel a growing pipeline.