Local start-up Provectus now listed on NYSE MKT
By Tom Ballard, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Pershing Yoakley & Associates, P.C.
A local biopharma start-up hit it big on Friday when its shares of common stock were officially listed on the NYSE MKT under the ticker symbol “PVCT.”
Provectus Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. is a development-stage oncology and dermatology biopharmaceutical company whose shares have been trading on the OTCQB. That ended with Friday’s listing on the NYSE MKT.
“It was thrilling to be on the floor of the NYSE Exchange when PVCT first started trading there and to see the PVCT ticker of Provectus with all the other large companies in the world,” Peter Culpepper told us on Friday. He is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of the company located on Oak Ridge Highway.
“PVCT is now taken seriously, like much more well-known companies,” he said, adding, “Further news on PVCT in the coming days and weeks will enable maximum visibility and awareness for the benefit of stockholders and patients in the advancement of our important efforts to better treat cancers and serious skin diseases.”
NYSE MKT bills itself as “the leading capital market for small cap companies within NYSE Euronext.”
So, from a day-to-day perspective, what is the impact?
“NYSE MKT listing enables access to capital at a much lower cost than not being listed (Over the Counter or OTC), so Provectus can fund itself much more cost effectively going forward if necessary and at less dilution to existing shareholders than would otherwise be the case,” Culpepper explained.
“Funds and other investors through larger stock brokerage houses can buy PVCT without the corporate governance concerns or issues that exist for OTC stocks. PVCT can now be solicited by brokers, so more people will have the opportunity to buy PVCT than ever before.”
Provectus specializes in developing oncology and dermatology therapies including its novel PV-10 drug that is designed to selectively target and destroy cancer cells without harming the surrounding healthy tissue. Its specific cancer focus is on melanoma, breast cancer and metastatic cancers of the liver.
The company was founded by Craig Dees, Tim Scott and Eric Wachter who, ironically, were doctoral students at the University of Wisconsin at the same time, but did not meet until later when the trio worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
The team left ORNL to found Photogen Technologies, Inc., a start-up focused on commercializing a multi-photon laser technology to treat cancer. In a previous teknovation.biz interview, Dees told us that the epiphany that led to the PV-10 and PH-10 drugs occurred on a Sunday night in Photogen’s laboratory.
Click here to read the company’s official news release on joining NYSE MKT.
In early June, data on PV-10 will be featured in two presentations in the Poster Highlights Session, Melanoma/Skin Cancers, during the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago. Click here for more information on that upcoming presentation.
