By M. Marin
NASDAQ:ORMP
READ THE FULL ORMP RESEARCH REPORT
Company maintains substantial liquidity
Oramed Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ORMP) had cash of $74.5 million at the end of March 2025, up from $54.4 million at year-end 2024. ORMP is leveraging its balance sheet to make investments in other early stage companies, in addition to advancing its strategy to move its assets forward. One of the investments ORMP has made was helping Scilex Holding Company, a biopharma company focused on acquiring, developing, and commercializing non-opioid management products to treat acute and chronic pain, with collateralized financing.
Last week company entered into a warrant repurchase agreement that includes $1.5m of option payments
Scilex had issued ORMP a promissory note collateralized by most of its assets, plus penny warrants to purchase Scilex shares. Last week, the company entered into an agreement with Scilex for the repurchase of warrants. ORMP granted Scilex an option to repurchase the warrants in two tranches for an aggregate purchase price of $27 million plus $1.5 million in option payments.
Strategic initiative to advance assets
Separately, ORMP has a JV with partner Hefei Tianhui Biotech (HTIT), a high-tech company focused on biopharmaceutical product manufacturing and R&D with an emphasis on the oral delivery of therapeutic macromolecules. It operates an oral insulin manufacturing facility located in Hefei, China.
The JV, OraTech Pharmaceuticals, is a strategic initiative to move its assets forward. The JV partners are planning a spin-off and IPO of OraTech. When / if OraTech lists on Nasdaq, HTIT and ORMP intend to make respective additional $20.0 million and $7.5 million investments. Coincident with OraTech’s launch on Nasdaq, Oramed plans to distribute the majority of expected 50% stake in OraTech to ORMP shareholders via a dividend.
OraTech will leverage HTIT’s manufacturing technologies and focus on developing and commercializing innovative products globally based on the combined assets and capabilities of the two JV partners. The company expects that the combination of their respective strengths – delivery technology and advanced manufacturing capabilities – will enable OraTech to develop, market and commercialize innovative treatments leveraging Oramed’s oral insulin and POD™ (Protein Oral Delivery) pipeline and scale production with consistent, high-quality output. Oramed is largely pre-revenue at this stage in terms of its pipeline, but in 1Q25 recognized $2.0 million of revenue related to its license agreement with HTIT.
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