San Diego Biotech TRACON Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Files for $58 Million IPO

December 30, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor

Clinical stage startup TRACON Pharmaceuticals is taking its company public, saying in an S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday that it will aim for a maximum offering price of $57.5 million.

San Diego, Calif.-based company Tracon will use the ticker TCON on the NASDAQ and will use Wells Fargo and Stifel as lead book-runners, with Needham & Company and Oppenheimer & Co as co-managers.

Pricing terms or numbers of shares on offer were not disclosed.

TRACON has attracted investor interest for its work into antibodies that attempt to treat cancer, age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, and fibrotic diseases. Their science team so far has been built around the field of endoglin biology, specifically focusing on ways to develop antibodies that bind to the endoglin receptor. Endoglin is essential to angiogenesis, the process of new blood vessel formation, and a key contributor to the development of fibrosis, or tissue scarring.

TRACON’s most promising therapy so far is built around TRC105, an anti-endoglin antibody that is being developed for the treatment of multiple solid tumor types in combination with inhibitors of the vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, pathway.

Other candidates include TRC102, a small molecule that is in clinical development for the treatment of lung cancer and glioblastoma, andTRC205, an anti-endoglin antibody that is in preclinical development for the treatment of fibrotic diseases.

In September TRACON completed a $27 million Series B financing round from new investors New Enterprise Associates, BioMed Ventures and unnamed institutional investor. That round also included existing investors including JAFCO Co. Ltd., Nextech Invest Ltd., Brookline Investments, Arcus Ventures and BHP.

As part of the Series B financing, NEA partner Paul Walker joined TRACON’s board of directors and Bruce Steel of BioMed Ventures became board observer.

In March 2014, global ophthalmology company Santen Pharmaceutical Co. licensed from TRACON exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize its anti-endoglin antibodies for ophthalmology indications, including AMD. Santen also retains global rights to develop and commercialize our anti-endoglin antibodies outside of the field of ophthalmology, as well as global rights to TRC102 in all indications.