pSivida first turned to Danforth in the summer of 2017 for support with an ambitious plan. Under the leadership of new CEO Nancy Lurker, the company sought to fast-track its evolution from an R&D-centric, small cap play to a commercial-ready entity with products approaching market and money in the bank. With a Chief Accounting Officer on staff but no CFO and little time to find one, Gregg Beloff stepped in as interim Chief Financial Advisor and quickly became a partner to Nancy at the highest strategic level.
“To complete this kind of transformation with an aggressive timeline, the company needed three things in short order: money, product and visibility with Wall Street,” says Gregg. “We were able to hit the ground running on all three fronts – advising and executing on the key events that ultimately formed an entirely new company, all while managing its functional finance needs along the way.”
The team pursued and accomplished several critical goals in parallel, including:
- The close of approximately $80 million in equity and debt financing from EW Healthcare Partners and SWK Holdings Company, respectively;
- Evaluation and execution of an agreement to acquire Icon Bioscience – thus accelerating its timeline to market with an FDA-approved product; and
- De-listing the company’s stock from trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.
This work culminated in the company’s
re-launch as EyePoint Pharmaceuticals
on March 28, 2018 – just seven months after the initial engagement with Danforth. The company has since doubled its market cap from approximately $50 million to $112 million, and is advancing towards the potential launch of two ophthalmic products in the first half of 2019.
To ensure its commercial readiness, EyePoint’s finance needs have evolved as well, including putting new systems in place and planning for manufacturing and sales. Rather than search for a candidate to fill this new role, EyePoint leveraged Danforth’s bench strength to immediately bring in CFO-level consultant Jim Murphy and get the work underway.
“Our engagement with EyePoint speaks to the very reasons that Danforth was formed – to operate as a flexible, financial backbone for life science companies, whether short or long term, and scale up or down as needed,” says Gregg. “We’re happy to support EyePoint in any capacity that suits their goals, including ultimately transitioning a well-run finance function to the future CFO.”
