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OKYO Pharma raises USD 20m in underwritten public offering

UK-based OKYO Pharma Limited (Nasdaq: OKYO) announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of ordinary shares for gross proceeds of approximately...

OKYO Pharma Offering: USD 20 Million Underwritten Public Offering Priced at USD 1.85 Per Share

Details of the OKYO Pharma Public Offering

UK-based OKYO Pharma Limited (Nasdaq: OKYO) announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of ordinary shares for gross proceeds of approximately USD 20 million, with the potential to reach approximately USD 23 million if the underwriter exercises its overallotment option in full. The OKYO Pharma offering is expected to close on or about February 17, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions. The company stated it intends to use net proceeds primarily for clinical development of its product candidates, general corporate purposes, and working capital. This biopharmaceutical public offering 2026 was conducted pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form F-3, filed with the SEC on February 2, 2026, and declared effective on February 10, 2026.

Structure and Pricing of the OKYO Stock Offering

The OKYO stock offering consists of 10,815,000 OKYO Pharma ordinary shares priced at USD 1.85 per share. The company has granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,622,250 ordinary shares at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. If exercised in full, the total share count would reach 12,437,250 ordinary shares. Piper Sandler & Co. is serving as the sole manager for the offering. No co-managers, co-underwriters, or named institutional investors were identified in the press release. The company did not disclose participation by insiders in the OKYO Pharma public offering.

Company Overview and Pipeline

OKYO Pharma Limited is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with OKYO Pharma Nasdaq-listed ordinary shares trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The company is incorporated in Guernsey and focuses on developing therapies for neuropathic corneal pain and inflammatory eye diseases. Its pipeline is built on intellectual property in-licensed from On Target Therapeutics LLC and sub-licensed from Tufts Medical Center, covering the use of chemerin and lipid-linked chemerin analogues for treating ocular inflammation and neuropathic pain.

The company's lead asset is urcosimod (formerly OK-101), a lipid-conjugated chemerin peptide agonist targeting ChemR23 (CMKLR1), a G protein-coupled receptor expressed on immune cells involved in ocular inflammation and on neuronal populations relevant to pain signaling. Urcosimod is formulated as a topical ophthalmic solution.

In neuropathic corneal pain, OKYO completed an 18-patient Phase II proof-of-concept trial, with topline results reported in July 2025 and additional corneal nerve imaging analyses disclosed in December 2025. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Fast Track Designation to urcosimod for neuropathic corneal pain in May 2025. The company has stated plans to initiate a multicenter Phase IIb/III multiple-dose study of approximately 150 subjects in the first half of 2026, and the proceeds from the current OKYO Pharma offering are expected to support this next stage of development. An abstract presenting the Phase II study results was accepted for presentation at the ASCRS 2026 annual meeting.

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In dry eye disease, urcosimod was evaluated in a completed Phase II multi-center, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial of approximately 240 patients. The company reported topline data in January 2024, stating that the drug met statistical significance on both sign and symptom endpoints, with expanded analyses disclosed in March 2024 and additional categorical data released in July 2024. No Phase III dry eye disease trial has been registered in public databases as of the date of this offering.

OKYO's second pipeline asset, OK-201, is listed as a discovery-stage program on the company's pipeline page. Preclinical data from an animal model of neuropathic ocular pain were disclosed in April 2021, but no IND-enabling studies or clinical trial registrations have been publicly identified for this compound.

On the financing side, OKYO recently transitioned its at-the-market equity offering facility from B. Riley Securities to Leerink Partners LLC, establishing a program allowing sales of up to USD 50 million in ordinary shares at prevailing market prices. The company also received a combined USD 3.3 million in non-dilutive funding across January 2025 and September 2025 to support urcosimod clinical development. OKYO has a peptide manufacturing partnership with AmbioPharm Inc. for cGMP API supply. No licensing-out transactions, acquisitions, or M&A activity has been disclosed.


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