Reported Late Thursday, Geron Corporation Announces Pricing Of $198M Upsized Public Offering Of 55,876,297 Shares Of Common Stock At A Price Of $2.45/Share

Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN), a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company, today announced the pricing of an upsized underwritten public offering consisting of 55,876,297 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $2.45 per share and pre-funded warrants to purchase 25,000,000 shares of its common stock. The pre-funded warrants are being sold at a public offering price of $2.449 per pre-funded warrant. All of the securities in the offering are to be sold by Geron. In addition, Geron has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 12,131,444 shares of its common stock, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The offering is expected to close on or about January 10, 2023, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

The gross proceeds to Geron from this underwritten public offering, before deducting the underwriting discount and other estimated offering expenses, are expected to be approximately $198.1 million. Geron currently intends to use the net proceeds from this public offering, together with its existing cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and current and noncurrent marketable securities, to fund preparatory activities for the potential U.S. commercial launch of imetelstat in lower risk MDS, and, if approved, to fund the potential U.S. commercial launch of imetelstat. Geron intends to use the remaining proceeds, if any, for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Stifel are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Wedbush PacGrow and Baird are acting as co-lead managers for the offering. B. Riley Securities and Needham & Company are acting as co-managers for the offering.

An automatically effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 relating to the public offering of the shares of common stock and pre-funded warrants described above was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 4, 2023. A preliminary prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to and describing the terms of the offering has been filed with the SEC and is available on the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. When available, copies of the final prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from: Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, at Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, by telephone at 1-866-471-2526 or by email at prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com; and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Attention: Syndicate, One Montgomery Street, Suite 3700, San Francisco, California 94104, by telephone at 415-364-2720 or by email at syndprospectus@stifel.com.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of these securities, nor will there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.