Public Offering
On August 9, 2022 (the “Closing Date”), we completed the Offering of 11,050,000,000 ordinary shares represented by 2,210,000 ADSs at a purchase price of $5.00 per ADS and the Pre-Funded Warrant to purchase 5,750,000,000 ordinary shares represented by 1,150,000 ADSs at a per pre-funded warrant price of $4.9999, with each ADS and Pre-Funded Warrant accompanied by the Common Warrant, for aggregate gross proceeds of $16.8 million, resulting in net proceeds of approximately $14.9 million, after deducting the placement agent’s fees and estimated offering expenses payable by us, and excluding the proceeds, if any, from the subsequent exercise of the Common Warrants. Each Common Warrant has an exercise price of $5.00 per ADS and expires on the fifth anniversary of the Closing Date. On the Closing Date, the holder of the Pre-Funded Warrant sold in the Offering exercised its Pre-Funded Warrant in full.
Patents and Licenses, Research and Development
Skinvisible:
On October 17, 2019, Quoin Inc. entered into an exclusive license agreement with Skinvisible Inc. (“Skinvisible”), pursuant to which Skinvisible granted a license to use certain patented technology for the development of products for commercial sale in the orphan rare skin disease field, and for the use of a proprietary polymer deliver system technology. This technology is currently being used in the development of QRX003. In exchange for the license, Quoin Inc. agreed to pay Skinvisible $1,000,000, as well as development and sales milestone payments and a single digit royalty on all net sales, as defined.
The development milestones required payments upon achieving development milestones for the first Rare Skin Disease drug product developed using the licensed technology and the first two Ketamine products, as defined. Payments were originally due upon successful completions of certain clinical milestones ($7,500,000) and obtaining US and EU regulatory approval ($15,000,000). The sales milestones required for every licensed product commercialized by Quoin Inc. are $10,000,000 upon achievement of $100,000,000 in sales being achieved in the annual period; $25,000,000 upon achievement of $250,000,000 in sales and $50,000,000 upon the achievement of $400,000,000 in sales in an annual period. On January 27, 2021, Quoin Inc. and Skinvisible entered into an amendment which modified the clinical milestone payment requirements such that $750,000 would be payable to Skinvisible upon achievement of specified clinical milestones, and $21,750,000 upon regulatory approval in the U.S. and EU respectively. No development milestones, sales milestones or royalty payments were due through March 2022.
The agreement has a termination clause that is triggered if no product has commenced clinical testing 12 months after the date of the agreement or the latest subsequent amendment. On April 19, 2021, Quoin Inc. and Skinvisible entered into another amendment which established the development deadline as December 31, 2022. This requirement has been met with the initiation of the clinical study for QRX003 in NS patients.
The license fee was originally due in two equal installments of $500,000 payable no later than December 31, 2019 and June 30, 2020, which were not paid. The agreement was subsequently amended for payment due on July 31, 2020. On July 31, 2020, the agreement was amended to further extend the payment until September 30, 2020. On September 30, 2020, the agreement was again amended, requiring payment of the license fee only when outside financing is received, as defined in the agreement. On June 21, 2021, the parties entered into an additional amendment which modified the payment terms and required a payment of $107,500 on June 26, 2021, a payment of $250,000 within 10 days of the Primary Financing, and the remaining $250,000 upon the earlier of approval of an Investigatory New Drug application by the FDA or December 31, 2021. The license acquisition liability due was paid in full in May 2022. This amendment also eliminated the $750,000 clinical milestone payments described above and reduced the milestone payment upon regulatory approval of the product containing the Skinvisible technology in either the U.S. or E.U., whichever happens first to a total of $5,000,000
Research and Development
We devote substantial research and development resources to developing our products.
Quoin Inc. entered into three consulting agreements with Axella Research LLC (“Axella”) to provide regulatory and pre- clinical/clinical services with respect to QRX003 and QRX004. The combined fees of the three agreements are approximately $270,000, payable as milestones are met. We incurred accrued expenses of approximately $194,000 as of December 31, 2021 in relation to Axella consulting agreements. During three months ended September 30, 2022, we issued 44,187 ADSs to one of Axella’s