Corporate Report

Raymond James Bank board adds TD Bank, Kemper Securities execs
Raymond James Financial Inc.'s Raymond James Bank announced the appointment of Deborah Davis and Fred Hosken to its board of directors and the retirement of longtime board member Jean Giles Wittner. The board now comprises nine members.

Davis is an attorney with extensive bank regulatory and compliance experience. She practiced law in Boston before serving as one of the key compliance executives at Bank of America. She went on to serve as the chief compliance officer for Wells Fargo and later served in that same capacity for TD Bank in Toronto.

Hosken, senior vice president of Fixed Income at Raymond James, started his career at KPMG. A 43-year industry veteran, he has served in various positions, including the head of Investment banking, head of capital markets and chief financial officer at previous firms. Prior to joining Raymond James in 1993, he spent 12 years at Kemper Securities.

Wittner, managing partner of Wittner Centre Partners, has been a member of the Raymond James Bank board of directors since 1994.

HedgePath Pharmaceuticals secures funding for drug trials
HedgePath Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Tampa clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on creating treatments for patients with cancer, closed a $1.5 million interim private common stock financing deal. Under the terms of the financing, Hedgepath LLC will purchase 20 million shares of HedgePath Pharmaceuticals common stock in exchange for $1.5 million in monthly tranches through the remainder of 2014.

As part of a related agreement, Mayne Pharma Ventures Pty Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian public company Mayne Pharma Group Limited, agreed to acquire a 40% equity interest in HedgePath Pharmaceuticals.

The Tampa firm says it will use the funds to support its FDA filing of an investigational new drug trial for a potential treatment for skin cancer.

Also as part of these transactions, Hedgepath LLC has agreed to forgive $640,000 in advances previously made to HPPI in exchange for shares of HedgePath Pharmaceuticals preferred stock and common stock and warrants to buy common stock. Following this transaction, and assuming full funding of its $1.5 million investment, Hedgepath LLC will own a 46.5% fully diluted interest in HedgePath Pharmaceuticals.

“This is a milestone moment for our company,” Nicholas Virca, HPPI's president and CEO, says in a press release. “Our binding agreement with Mayne Pharma and our interim financing enables us to initiate our clinical programs designed around the repurposing of itraconazole, which is an FDA approved anti-fungal drug, for new therapies in the treatment of cancer. We are very excited to move forward with our IND and to begin our clinical trial work.”

Lakewood-Amedex stock offering raises $5.5 million for antimicrobial testing
Sarasota-based Lakewood-Amedex Inc., which develops anti-infective pharmaceuticals, announced it has raised a total of $5.5 million, before fees and expenses, through a Series C preferred stock offering from a group of accredited investors. Scarsdale Equities LLC of New York and San Francisco acted as the principal placement agent.

The company expects to use the proceeds to move forward on human clinical trials of its broad-spectrum Bisphosphocin class of antimicrobials.

WellCare Health Plans promotes new Florida president
WellCare Health Plans Inc. has named Gregg MacDonald state president for Florida. He is now responsible for WellCare's Medicaid and Medicare Advantage businesses across the state and will lead the company's Florida expansion initiatives.

MacDonald has served as the company's chief operating officer for Florida since May 2007 and worked as WellCare's acting state president for Florida since April 4. He will continue to report to Ken Burdick, WellCare's president and chief operating officer.

Before joining WellCare, MacDonald was vice president of network management for United Healthcare, which included responsibility for its southeast region government programs and commercial market leadership for central and north Florida.

USF Professor, patent holder named national invention ambassador
The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Lemelson Foundation has named Paul Sanberg, senior vice president for research and innovation at the University of South Florida and founder and president of the National Academy of Inventors, as a national invention ambassador.

Sanberg, who is a university professor of neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and business at USF, is an inventor with more than 30 licensed health-related U.S. patents. His work was used in translating new pharmaceutical and cellular therapeutics into clinical trials for Tourette syndrome, depression, stroke, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, Alzheimer's disease and overactive bladder. He also worked with a number of startup companies involved in cell therapy for degenerative disorders.

The seven AAAS-Lemelson invention ambassadors, who will serve for one year, hold a collective 150 patents.

MagneGas common shares joins Russell Microcap Index
The stock of Tampa-based MagneGas Corp. has been added to the Russell Microcap Index.

Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for active investment strategies. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes based on market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.