Xoma sells Lucentis royalty rights for $25M

Xoma Ltd. (NASDAQ:XOMA) sold its royalty rights to Lucentis ranibizumab to Genentech Inc. for $25 million. Xoma will use the money to help repay a $44.2 million loan to Goldman Sachs. Xoma expects to repay the remainder of the loan with $6.9 million in cash and $12.3 million that it plans to raise under a committed equity financing facility with Azimuth Opportunity Ltd. Under the CEFF, Xoma plans to sell 16.3 million shares at an average price of $0.75, which is a 13% discount to Xoma's close of $0.86 on Friday, before the offering was announced.

Lucentis is a humanized mAb fragment against VEGF-A that is marketed in the U.S. to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by Genentech and by Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) elsewhere. Genentech is a unit of Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY). ...