QUESTCAP SIGNS BINDING LOI TO ACQUIRE INTEREST IN AMINO THERAPEUTICS

TORONTO, April 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- QuestCap Inc. (“QuestCap” or the “Company”) (CSE: QSC; OTCMKTS: COPRF; FRA: 34C1) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a binding letter of intent (the “LOI”) with Amino Therapeutics, Inc. (“Amino”) to acquire 40% of the issued and outstanding shares of Amino. QuestCap cautions that this is still early stage research and development and is not making any express or implied claims that it has the ability to treat the SARS-CoV-2 virus at this time.

Amino has obtained exclusive rights to leverage their parent company’s, Exponential Genomics Inc. (“Xenomics”) XenoArray platform to engineer a potential treatment for COVID-19 (the “Treatment”) based on peptide protease inhibitors. Being developed to engineer to genetically modify multiple microbial strains to produce thousands of peptide-based protease inhibitors in parallel, the XenoArray platform may empower Amino Therapeutics with a unique advantage to potentially design an effective treatment for COVID-19.

The terms of the LOI are as follows:

• Amino will sell a 40% equity interest to QuestCap;
• QuestCap will inject $1 million USD of cash on the closing date, $500,000 USD 60 days from the closing date and $500,000 USD 120 days from the closing date;
• QuestCap will issue 15 million common shares on the closing date;
• QuestCap will receive a warrant to purchase an additional 9% equity in Amino for $2 million with an expiry of 24 months from the closing date;
• QuestCap will receive a warrant to acquire up to a 9.9% equity in Amino’s parent company, Exponential Genomics Inc., for $2 million USD for a period of 12 months from the closing date.

The closing of the transaction to acquire a 40% equity interest in Amino is subject to the parties negotiating a definitive agreement. 

Stan Bharti, QuestCap’s Co-Chairman, stated: “The global COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an emergency situation that requires immediate intervention. By leveraging the XenoArray technology at Exponential Genomics, Amino Therapeutics is well positioned to potentially develop the next generation antiviral therapeutic candidates.”

David Preiner, Amino’s President and Chief Executive Officer, stated: “Engineering of next generation therapeutics to potentially combat the current COVID-19 outbreak normally requires a long process of research and development that is typically associate with long development timelines and high development costs, which in this emergency could have catastrophic consequences. At Amino, we are working on ways to accelerate the drug development timeline for novel biologics to start regulatory processes, demonstrate patient safety, and bring patient’s treatments.”