Germany’s BioNTech Taps Banks to Prepare for $800 Million IPO

Germany-based BioNTech is eying a potential $800 million initial public offering.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that BioNTech has engaged a number of banks to help prepare for the IPO. The company has retained Bank of America and J.P. Morgan to coordinate with the planned listing, Reuters said. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, Reuters said BioNTech is planning to list on the Nasdaq by the fourth quarter of this year or in early 2020. When that listing happens, Reuters said the company could be valued at about $4 billion.

For BioNTech, the IPO will follow a funding round that brought about $270 million into the coffers of the privately-held company.

BioNTech has developed four broad technology platforms, including an mRNA-based platform that is focused on oncology and infectious diseases, as well as a cell and gene therapy platform. The company also has a protein therapeutics platform and a small molecule development platform. Currently, BioNTech has five programs in the clinic, with more expected over the course of this year. Additionally, the company anticipates a rapid expansion of its pre-clinical pipeline.

Since the turn of the new year, BioNTech has been busy. In January, the company extended its three-year-old collaboration with Sanofi as the companies look to co-develop the first cancer immunotherapy candidate for solid tumors. The two companies will work to develop an investigational therapy that includes an mRNA mixture encoding immunomodulatory cytokines that are injected directly into the tumor. In addition to its mRNA programs, BioNTech is also working on developing a CAR-T treatment for solid tumors. So far, the only CAR-T treatments that have been approved by the FDA are for blood cancers. The company believes they have one program that might be a game-changer when it comes to using CAR-Ts against solid tumors.

Also in January, BioNTech inked a deal with Germany’s MAB Discovery GmbH to acquire that company’s operational antibody generation unit. Under the terms of that deal, BioNTech will acquire all assets, employees and “proprietary know-how” for monoclonal antibody (mAb) generation.

In March, Ugur Sahin, founder and chief executive officer of BioNTech, received the German Cancer Award for 2019. The award is one of the most prestigious distinctions in cancer medicine in Germany. Sahin was recognized in the category Translational Research for his seminal work on individualized cancer immunotherapies and in particular the development and clinical testing of mRNA-based cancer vaccines that are tailored to each patient´s cancer mutation profile.

BioNTech is the largest, privately-held biopharma company in Europe. In addition to its partnership with Sanofi, the company has six other significant corporate partnerships with Roche’s Genentech, Pfizer, Genmab, Eli Lilly, Genevant and Bayer Health.