Immunocore, a UK-based bispecific immunotherapy developer backed by pharmaceutical firms Eli Lilly and WuXi AppTec, has floated on the Nasdaq Global Select Market having raised over $258m in its initial public offering.
The offering consisted of approximately 9.94 million American Depositary Shares priced at $26.00 each, above the offering’s $23 to $25 range. Immunocore concurrently completed a $15m private placement from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The company’s shares rose more than 66% to close at $43.20 on Friday, equating to a market capitalisation of $1.77bn.
Immunocore is working on antibody treatments for cancer, autoimmune and infectious diseases targeting T-cell engaging receptors.
About $100m of the IPO proceeds will be used to complete a phase 3 trial for Immunocore’s lead asset, tebentafusp, for metastatic uveal melanoma, as well as initiating its commercial launch. Interim results of the phase 3 trial have shown promising results.
The company will also put $20m each toward the development of two programmes for solid tumours, $10m into development of a potential cure for chronic hepatitis B and another $20m for preclinical and drug discovery activities.
Immunocore secured $75m in a December 2020 series C round led by General Atlantic, with participation from BlackRock and unnamed existing backers, alongside $100m in debt financing from Oxford Finance.
WuXi AppTec’s corporate venturing fund and Eli Lilly took part in the company’s $130m series B round in March 2020 with General Atlantic, CCB International, JDRF T1D Fund, Rock Springs Capital, Terra Magnum Capital Partners, RTW Investments and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had already injected $40m in Immunocore in 2017. Eli Lilly, Woodford Investment Management (since rescued by Schroders and rebranded to Schroders UK Public Private Trust), Malin Corporation and RTW Investments had supplied $320m in 2015.
General Atlantic owns a 9.6% stake diluted from 12.4%, followed by Eli Lilly (6.2% post-IPO), co-founder and former chairman Nicholas Cross, founding investor Ian Laing and Malin (5.7% each) private investor George Robinson (5.2%), Blackwell Family (4.2%), Baker Brothers (4%) and Schroders UK Public Private Trust (3.9%).
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Securities and Jefferies are joint book-running managers for the offering and have 30 days to acquire up to 1.25 million additional shares, which would add up to $32.5m in gross proceeds to the IPO.
The original version of this story appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.
