Ocugen, Inc. Announces Inducement Grants Under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(4)
January 24, 2022 at 09:12 am EST
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MALVERN, Pa. - Ocugen, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCGN), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing gene therapies to cure blindness diseases and developing a vaccine to save lives from COVID-19, announced the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of Ocugen approved the grant of stock options to purchase an aggregate of 787,268 shares of its common stock and restricted stock units (RSUs) covering an aggregate of 217,681 shares of common stock to three newly hired team members. The stock options and RSUs were granted on January 10, 2022, and January 17, 2022, as material inducements to employment in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(4). 687,872 of the stock options and 190,198 of the RSUs were issued on January 10, 2022, to a new member of the management team, whose appointment will be announced at a later date.
The stock options have a ten-year term and exercise prices of $4.32 and $4.25 per share, which were the closing prices of Ocugen's common stock on January 10 and January 14, respectively. The stock options and RSUs vest in equal annual installments over a three-year period starting on the one-year anniversary of the grant date, subject to the applicable new employee's continued service with Ocugen through the applicable vesting dates. The stock options and RSUs were granted outside of Ocugen's 2019 Equity Incentive Plan.
About Ocugen, Inc.
Ocugen, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing gene therapies to cure blindness diseases and developing a vaccine to save lives from COVID-19. Our breakthrough modifier gene therapy platform has the potential to treat multiple retinal diseases with one drug - 'one to many,' and our novel biologic product candidate aims to offer better therapy to patients with underserved diseases such as wet age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, and diabetic retinopathy. We are co-developing Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN vaccine candidate for COVID-19 in the U.S. and Canadian markets.
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Ocugen, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing gene and cell therapies, biologics, and vaccines that improve health for patients across the globe. Its technology pipeline includes modifier gene therapy platform, regenerative medicine cell therapy platform, and biologic therapies for retinal diseases. The Company is developing its modifier gene therapy platform, inclusive of OCU400, OCU410, and OCU410ST, for the treatment of multiple inherited retinal disease (IRDs), including retinitis pigmentosa (RP), Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), Stargardt disease and multifactorial diseases such as dry age-related macular degeneration (dAMD) and geographic atrophy (GA). It is developing an inhalation-based mucosal vaccine platform based on a novel ChAd vector, which includes OCU500, a COVID-19 vaccine; OCU510, a seasonal quadrivalent flu vaccine; and OCU520, a combination quadrivalent seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine.