Kezar Announces Closing of $56.8 Million Public Offering of Common Stock and Pre-Funded Warrants
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kezar Life Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: KZR), a clinical-stage biotechnology company discovering and developing novel small molecule therapeutics to treat unmet needs in autoimmune disease and cancer, today announced the closing of an underwritten public offering of 16,115,385 shares of its common stock, and to certain investors in lieu thereof, pre-funded warrants to purchase 2,884,615 shares of its common stock at an exercise price of $0.001 per share. The public offering price of each share of common stock was $2.60 and the public offering price of each pre-funded warrant was $2.599. In addition, Kezar granted to the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 2,850,000 shares of common stock, which the Underwriters exercised in full.
Cowen, Wells Fargo Securities and William Blair acted as joint book-running managers for the offering.
Kezar received gross proceeds of $56.8 million from the offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses. Kezar intends to use the net proceeds from the offering primarily to fund the research and development of its product candidates, acquire or license products or technologies that are complementary to its own, although Kezar has no current plans, commitments or agreements with respect to any acquisitions or licenses as of the date hereof, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
The securities described above were offered by Kezar pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) dated July 3, 2019. A preliminary prospectus supplement and a final prospectus supplement relating to the offering are filed with the SEC and available on the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov. Copies of the preliminary and final prospectus supplements relating to the offering may be obtained by contacting Cowen and Company, LLC c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, Attn: Prospectus Department, by email at PostSaleManualRequests@broadridge.com or by telephone at (833) 297-2926; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC Attention: Equity Syndicate Department, 500 West 33rd Street, New York, New York 10001, by telephone at (800) 326-5897 or by email at cmclientsupport@wellsfargo.com; or William Blair & Company, L.L.C. Attention: Prospectus Department, 150 North Riverside Plaza, Chicago, Illinois 60606, by telephone at (800) 621-0687 or by email at prospectus@williamblair.com.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.
About Kezar Life Sciences
Based in South San Francisco, Kezar Life Sciences is a clinical-stage biotechnology company committed to revolutionizing treatments for patients with autoimmune diseases and cancer. Kezar is translating its innovative research on the immunoproteasome and protein secretion pathways to advance novel therapeutic approaches. KZR-616, a first-in-class selective immunoproteasome inhibitor, is being evaluated in severe autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), lupus nephritis (LN), dermatomyositis (DM), polymyositis (PM), autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) and immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Additionally, Kezar has nominated KZR-261 as its first clinical candidate for the treatment of cancer from its protein secretion program and is undergoing IND-enabling studies for the program.
CONTACT:
Celia Economides, MPH
SVP, Strategy & External Affairs
ceconomides@kezarbio.com
