Germany-based messenger RNA (mRNA) therapy developer CureVac is floating today in a $213m initial public offering that provides exits for pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Eli Lilly and Genmab.
The company priced more than 13.3 million shares at the top of the IPO’s $14 to $16 range, valuing it above $2.8bn. It will be listed on the Nasdaq Global Market, and Dietmar Hopp, head of majority shareholder Dievini Hopp BioTech, is buying approximately $118m of shares in the offering.
CureVac is developing mRNA drugs to treat diseases such as cancer in addition to vaccines for diseases like rabies. It has experienced a significant amount of interest recently due to the technology’s perceived potential for use in a Covid-19 vaccine.
The company closed a $640m funding round last month featuring GSK, which invested $171m, development bank KfW and sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority.
About $150m of the proceeds from the IPO and recent equity round will fund clinical development of the Covid-19 vaccine through the planned completion of a phase 3 clinical trial.
Another $50m will be used to bolster CureVac’s manufacturing abilities and $65m will go to enhancing its technology platform while $35m will fund the progress of a drug candidate for solid tumours and a rabies vaccine through ongoing phase 1 studies to the completion of phase 2 trials.
The July 2020 round pushed the company’s overall funding to roughly $900m which includes $53.3m supplied by Eli Lilly through a 2017 partnership deal and $22m invested by Genmab as part of a similar agreement in December 2019.
Dievini Hopp BioTech’s 53.7% stake is being cut to 49.7% in the offering while KfW’s is being diluted from 18.3% to 16.9% and GSK’s from 9.2% to 8.4%.
Earlier CureVac investors include Baillie Gifford, Sigma Group, Northview, DH Capital, LBBW Asset Management Investmentgesellshaft, Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chartwave, Coppel Family, OH Beteiligungen and Leonardo Venture.
Joint book-running managers BofA Securities, Jefferies and Credit Suisse and passive book-running managers Berenberg and Kempen & Co will have 30 days to buy up to 2 million extra shares if they choose, potentially increasing the size of the offering to $245m.
