Four Biotechs Roar with Strong IPOs, Other Life Sciences Companies Raise Additional Funds
Like the Grinch’s heart at Christmas, the Nasdaq Exchange grew a little bigger this week with multiple life science companies raising hundreds of millions of dollars in initial public offerings.
This morning, Silverback Therapeutics makes its debut on the Nasdaq. The company announced its goal to raise $241 million through an IPO – an increase from the $195 million projected earlier this week. The company intends to sell 11,500,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $21 per share. The stock will sell under the ticker symbol “SBTX.” Silverback will use a portion of the IPO proceeds to fund the development of therapeutics for oncology and other serious diseases through its proprietary ImmunoTAC technology platform. The ImmunoTAC platform pairs proprietary payloads that modulate key disease modifying pathways with monoclonal antibodies directed at specific disease sites. Silverback’s lead candidate is SBT6050, which is being assessed in a Phase I clinical trial in adults with HER2-expressing solid tumors. SBT6050 is a specific small molecule tool-like receptor 8 (TLR8) agonist conjugated to a HER2-directed monoclonal antibody.
Silverback isn’t the only Biotech IPO this week. Other companies, including Kinnate Biopharma, Seer and Sigilon Therapeutics all announced plans to become publicly traded companies this week.
Sigilon Therapeutics – Cambridge, Mass.-based Sigilon Therapeutics raised $126 million in its IPO. The company, which is developing treatments, for chronic diseases through its Shielded Living Therapeutics platform, priced 7 million shares of common stock at $18 per share. The stock began to sell on the Nasdaq this morning at $18 per share under the ticker symbol “SGTX.”
In March, Sigilon raised $80.3 million in a Series B financing round. Funds from that round were set aside to support the clinical trial of Sigilon’s novel encapsulated cell therapy for hemophilia A. In 2018, Sigilon and Eli Lilly entered into an agreement to develop encapsulated cell therapies for the potential treatment of type 1 diabetes. Lilly provided an upfront payment of $63 million to harness Sigilon’s Afibromer technology product platform to develop the encapsulated cell therapies that can be implanted within a patient. Sigilon will create proprietary products comprised of induced pluripotent stem cells, which is a type of stem cell derived from adult cells.
Seer Inc. – Redwood City, Calif.-based Seer, Inc., which launched in 2018, anticipates $175 million in its IPO, up from an expected $150 million when initially announced earlier this year. The company announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 9,210,527 shares of Class A common stock at a public offering price of $19 per share. Like Sigilon and Silverback, Seer’s stock began trading on the Nasdaq this morning under the ticker symbol “SEER.”
Proceeds from the sale will go, in part, to developing its Proteograph technology, which is billed as an integrated solution consisting of consumables, automation instrumentation and proprietary software that performs deep, unbiased proteomics analysis at scale in a matter of hours.
Kinnate Biopharma – Bay Area-based Kinnate Biopharma announced the pricing of a $20 per share price for its initial public offering of 12,000,000 shares of common stock. Gross proceeds are expected to be $240 million. The stock first began to trade on the Nasdaq Dec. 3 under the ticker symbol “KNTE.” Kinnate Biopharma is focused on the discovery and development of small molecule kinase inhibitors for difficult-to-treat, genomically defined cancers. Proceeds from the IPO will be used to fund clinical trials, for R&D and other general corporate purposes, the company said.
Progenity – San Diego-based Progenity, which raised $100 million in its IPO earlier this year, announced it will sell 7,645,259 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $3.27 per share. The diagnostics company intends to secure about $25 million from the public offering and will used the proceeds from the sale to support its operations, to invest in its molecular testing research and development program, to invest in research and development with respect to its precision medicine platform and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
In addition to the $25 million from the public offering, Progenity announced it secured $90 million in a private offering of 7.25% convertible senior notes due 2025.
Achieve Life Sciences – Like Progenity, Achieve Life Sciences announced it raised $15 million through a public offering of 2,150,000 shares of its common stock at a price of $7 per share. Achieve intends to use the proceeds from the offering to fund its Phase III ORCA-2 trial, assessing cytisinicline for smoking cessation and nicotine addiction. Additionally, funds will be earmarked for clinical research and development, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes, the company said.
Cetara – New Jersey-based Cetara announced its IPO plans Dec. 3. The company will offer 14,630,000 shares of common stock, with the price expected to be between $19 and $22 per share. The company anticipates raising about $500 million. Cetara has applied to have its stock sold on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “CERT.”