MediciNova History
MediciNova, Inc. was founded in September 2000 with $10 million in Series A seed funding from Tanabe Seiyaku Co., Ltd. (Osaka). MediciNova was established in San Diego as a biopharmaceutical company focused on acquiring and accelerating the global development and commercialization of innovative pharmaceutical products. The Company’s strategy is to build a strong product portfolio through alliances with North American, European and Japanese biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. MediciNova licensed its first development candidates in 2002. MN-001 was licensed from Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo) and MN-029 from Angiogene Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (Oxford, UK). In 2004, the Company added $70.2M in Series B and C rounds of financing and licensed four more development candidates: MN-221 from Kissei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Matsumoto City, Japan), MN-305 and MN-246 from Mitsubishi Pharma Corp. (Osaka) and MN-166 from Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo). In February 2005, MediciNova became the first U.S. company to be publicly traded in Japan, raising $113.2 million (net) on the Osaka (Hercules) Securities Exchange (code: 4875). In December 2006, MediciNova listed on the NASDAQ Global Market under the ticker symbol MNOV. In January 2007, MediciNova completed an offering of 1 million shares at $12 per share, raising approximately $11.2 million (net) in proceeds for the company. In March 2011, MediciNova completed an offering of 2,750,000 units at a price to the public of $3.00 per unit for approximately $7.9 million (net) in proceeds for the company. In October 2011, Kissei purchased 800,000 shares of common stock at $2.50 per share and 220,000 shares of Series B preferred stock at $25.00 per share for a total of $7.5 million proceeds to the company. The Series B preferred shares will be convertible to common shares at a conversion rate of 1:10. In addition, Kissei also funded $2.5 million for MediciNova to continue clinical development for MN-221 in COPD.