Caladrius Biosciences, Inc. and Cend Therapeutics, Inc. announced that the proposed merger of the two companies has closed following the approval of Caladrius’ stockholders on September 13, 2022. The merged company will operate as Lisata Therapeutics, Inc. (“Lisata”) and will focus primarily on advancing its CendR Platform™ technology product candidates in a range of oncology indications, in addition to Caladrius’ existing development programs. Lisata will commence trading on The Nasdaq Capital Market today, September 15, 2022, under the ticker symbol “LSTA”.
“The completion of the merger of Caladrius and Cend is an extraordinary milestone for our companies, our employees, our stockholders and, it is our fervent hope, for patients,” stated David J. Mazzo, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Lisata. “The entire Lisata team is driven by the goal of helping patients who suffer from difficult-to-treat cancers via our CendR platform™ as well as other devastating diseases, and we are committed to the development of innovative products to treat such conditions. Based on our strong balance sheet, advancing mid-late stage clinical development pipeline and our Tumor-Penetrating Nanocomplex™ (“TPN”) platform that holds potential to enable effective treatment of solid tumor cancers with RNA-based medicines, we expect to reach important development milestones over the next 24 months.”
Following the closing of the merger, David J. Mazzo, Ph.D., current President and Chief Executive Officer of Caladrius will continue as the Chief Executive Officer of Lisata, David Slack, MBA, current President and Chief Executive Officer of Cend, will be Lisata’s President and Chief Business Officer, and Kristen K. Buck, M.D., current Executive Vice President of R&D and Chief Medical Officer of Caladrius, will continue in those roles with Lisata. Lisata’s cash and investments, as of immediately following the closing of the merger, are approximately $76 million. Prior to the closing of the merger, Caladrius effected a 1-for-15 reverse split of its common stock. Post-merger and post-reverse split, Lisata has approximately 7.8 million shares of common stock issued and outstanding, with prior Caladrius stockholders collectively owning approximately 52% of the combined company and prior Cend stockholders collectively owning approximately 48% of the combined company.