Image source: Trevi Therapeutics

Trevi Therapeutics ( TRVI ) announced Thursday that it has reached agreement on a $55 million private placement.

The New Haven, Connecticut-based company is selling 4,580,526 shares of common stock at $1.90 per share, plus pre-funded warrants to purchase up to 24,379,673 shares of common stock at $1.899 per warrant.

Each warrant will have an exercise price of $0.001 per share with no expiry date.

Frazier Life Sciences and Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners are the co-lead investors in the private placement, with Fairmount and New Enterprise Associates participating in the deal.

Trevi is developing an investigational therapy to treat chronic pruritus associated with prurigo nodularis (PN) and chronic cough in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

These conditions share a common pathophysiology that is mediated through opioid receptors in the central and peripheral nervous systems.

Trevi's therapy, called Haduvio, is an oral extended-release formulation of nalbuphine, which has been approved and marketed as an injectable for pain indications for more than 20 years in the United States and Europe.

Investment thesis

Trevi Therapeutics began trading publicly in May 2019, raising $55 million in gross proceeds at $10 per share. Investors haven't had much to celebrate since then, but there are indications that better days are ahead.

  • The company had cash and equivalents of $36.8 million as of Dec. 31, 2021, so this latest private placement of $55 million is most timely.
  • We also have high regard for the investors in this round.
  • Though detractors will say that the company is a one-trick pony with a pipeline based on one candidate, Haduvio has demonstrated such broad clinical effectiveness that we view it as a multi-faceted therapeutic platform in a single drug.
  • The global chronic cough category represents a $10 billion total addressable market.
  • The global pruritis category represents a $20 billion total addressable market.
  • There are no approved therapies for either chronic cough in IPF or pruritis associated with prurigo nodularis.
  • Trevi announced statistically significant data on Feb. 24, 2022, from its interim analysis from the Phase 2 trial of Haduvio for chronic cough in IPF.

    • The data was so strong that the company stopped trial enrollment in order to accelerate development.
  • Even with the pop in the stock over the past month and a half, we see signficant value at current levels.
  • Key topline data is expected in next six months that could provide investors with catalysts:

    • Pruritus in PN Phase 2b/3 topline data expected 2Q 2022 
    • Chronic cough in IPF Phase 2 topline data expected 3Q 2022

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Source: Equities News

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Trevi Therapeutics Inc