Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)

Related Party Transactions

v3.19.2
Related Party Transactions
12 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2019
Related Party Transactions  
Related Party Transactions

14.    Related Party Transactions

Novici Biotech, LLC

In January 2012, the Company entered into an agreement with Novici in which iBio’s President is a minority stockholder. See Note 8 for further details.

Agreements with Eastern Capital Limited and its Affiliates.

As more fully discussed in Note 11, the Company entered into two share purchase agreements with Eastern.

Concurrently with the execution of the Purchase Agreements, iBio entered into a contract manufacturing joint venture with an affiliate of Eastern (the "Eastern Affiliate") to develop and manufacture plant-made pharmaceuticals through iBio CDMO. The Eastern Affiliate contributed $15.0 million in cash to iBio CDMO, for a 30% interest in iBio CDMO. iBio retained a 70% equity interest in iBio CDMO. As the majority equity holder, iBio has the right to appoint a majority of the members of the Board of Managers that manages the iBio CDMO joint venture. Specified material actions by the joint venture require the consent of iBio and the Eastern Affiliate. iBio contributed to the capital of iBio CDMO a royalty bearing license, which grants iBio CDMO a non-exclusive license to use the iBio’s proprietary technologies for research purposes and an exclusive U.S. license for manufacturing purposes. iBio retains all other rights in its intellectual property, including the right for itself to commercialize products based on its proprietary technologies or to grant licenses to others to do so.

In connection with the joint venture, the Second Eastern Affiliate, which controls the subject property as sublandlord, granted iBio CDMO the Sublease of a Class A life sciences building in Bryan, Texas, located on land owned by the Texas A&M system, designed and equipped for plant-made manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. Accrued expenses at June 30, 2019 and 2018 due to the Second Eastern Affiliate are $701,000 and $789,000, respectively. General and administrative expenses related to Second Eastern Affiliate were approximately $1,051,000 and $852,000 in 2019 and 2018, respectively. Interest expense related to the Second Eastern Affiliate was approximately $1,900,000 and $1,915,000 in 2019 and 2018, respectively. The terms of the sublease are described in Note 10.

A three-year standstill agreement (the "Standstill Agreement") took effect upon the issuance of the shares to Eastern pursuant to a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of 650,000 shares of common stock. The Standstill Agreement has been amended twice so that Eastern and its controlled affiliates are limited to its beneficial ownership of the Company’s outstanding shares of common stock to a maximum of 48%, absent approval by a majority of the Company’s Board of Directors. Eastern agreed to extend the standstill restrictions for two (2) additional years beginning with the date of Eastern’s or its controlled affiliate’s purchase of securities in the public offering with Alliance. See Note 11 for further information.

On February 23, 2017, the Company entered into an exchange agreement with the Eastern Affiliate pursuant to which the Company acquired substantially all of the interest in iBio CDMO held by the Eastern Affiliate and issued one share of the iBio CMO Preferred Tracking Stock in exchange for 29,990,000 units of limited liability company interests of iBio CDMO held by the Eastern Affiliate at an original issue price of $13 million. After giving effect to the transactions in the Exchange Agreement, the Company owns 99.99% of iBio CDMO and the Eastern Affiliate owns 0.01% of iBio CDMO.

Departure of Director and Appointment of New Director

Effective April 1, 2019, Arthur Y. Elliott, Ph.D. resigned from his position as a member of the Board of Directors of the Company. Dr. Elliott did not advise the Corporation of any disagreement with the Corporation on any matter relating to its operations, policies or practices. Also, effective April 1, 2019, Thomas F. Isett 3rd ("Isett") was appointed as a member of the Board to serve as a Class I director. Mr. Isett's term as a Class I director will expire at the Corporation's 2021 annual meeting of stockholders.

Director Consulting Agreement

Effective as of May 1, 2019, the Company entered into a Statement of Work (the "May 1, 2019 SOW") pursuant to a Consulting Agreement, dated as of February 22, 2019, between the Company and i.e. Advising, LLC (the "Consultant"). Thomas Isset, a director of the Company, is the Managing Director and sole owner of the Consultant. The Consultant has been retained by the Company as a strategy and management consultant through December 31, 2019, with services to be provided pursuant to statements of work that may be entered into between the Company and Consultant from time to time. The May 1, 2019 SOW has a term from May 1, 2019 to August 31, 2019. The engagement under the May 1, 2019 SOW is being conducted on a retainer basis for the director, as the primary engagement resource, at a rate of $40,000 per month, and on a time and materials basis for all other engagement resources provided by Consultant, which are billable at the rate of $85.00 to $450 per hour. Consulting expenses totaled $168,348 in 2019.