Noble Financial Expands Its Life Sciences Investment Banking Division in Time for NobleCon13.
November 14, 2016 – Boca Raton, Florida
Noble Life Science Partners, a division of Noble Financial Capital Markets (Noble) announced today that Nathan Cali, formerly Noble’s specialty pharmaceuticals senior analyst, has moved to its investment banking department.
The move was timed to coincide with Noble’s Investor Conference - NobleCon13 to be held at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, January 30-31, 2017. Life science companies represent a significant portion of the presenting company roster at the conference. The sector is so important to Noble that it moved the date of the 2017 NobleCon back by two weeks in order to avoid a conflict with the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference set for early January in San Francisco.
Mr Cali joined Noble in 2008 after gaining experience at Andrx Pharmaceuticals and Franklin Templeton. “As a senior analyst at Noble, Nathan has exhibited a “nose” for finding compelling investment ideas and themes for investors,” said Noble’s CEO Nico P. Pronk. A good example is a company that was recently acquired – Cynapsus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASADQ; CYNA) for $624 million USD. In 2013, when the company’s market capitalization was only $13.9 million, Noble was the first to initiate equity research coverage. Since that time, Cali has published 30 Cynapsus research reports and the company has attended two NobleCon Conferences. Noble has also supported the company’s growth in investor awareness through three rounds of financing totaling in excess of $100 million USD, and through numerous non-deal road shows targeting fundamental science-driven institutional investors.
Cynapsus is not the only company that has shown substantial growth. For example, Cali initiated coverage of TherapeuticsMD (NYSE;TXMD) in 2013 when its market capitalization was $200 million, today it hovers around $1.0 billion; Axogen (NASDAQ;AXGN) has grown from $28 million since initiation of research coverage in 2012 to over $280 million today. Cali also was early in identifying opportunities in the Hepatitis C space; Pharmasset‘s (NASDAQ; VRUS) market cap was $173 million when he initiated – the company was purchased a few years later by Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD) for $11 billion, and; Inhibitex (NASDAQ:INHX) was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE; BMS) for $2.5 billion and had a market capitalization in 2009 of $13 million when Noble initiated coverage. Cali was also instrumental in the creation (co-founder) of Variant Pharmaceuticals; a private early-stage life sciences company that will be entering into Phase 1 studies on the path to the commercialization of products designed to treat rare progressive forms of kidney disease.
Noble believes that Mr. Cali’s strong analytical healthcare background will provide great value to corporations in need of financing and strategic advice, and will further enhance our investment banking capabilities in the Noble Life Science Partners division.