US-based biopharmaceutical company Cerulean Pharma has gone public in a $59.5m initial public offering in which pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, an existing investor, invested $5.9m.
Cerulean sold 8.5 million shares priced at $7.00 each, a big discount on the $11-13 range it had initially set. Underwriters Leerink Partners, Canaccord Genuity, JMP Securities and Wedbush PacGrow Life Sciences have the option to acquire another 1.275 million shares, which would raise the proceeds from the offering to $68.4m.
Lilly Ventures, Eli Lilly’s corporate venturing unit, led Cerulean’s $24m series C round in 2010, and participated in the company’s $15m series D in 2011 together with CVF, which led the round, Polaris Venture Partners, Venrock, Lux Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. Lilly held a 16.2% share of Cerulean prior to the offering, which will fall to 13% despite the purchase of additional shares.
Cerulean had raised more than $84m in funding since it was founded in 2006 as Tempo Pharmaceuticals. Its largest shareholders, both of which bought shares in the offering, are Polaris, owner of a 32.2% stake that dropped to 26%, and Venrock, holder of a 20.8% share that was diluted to 16.7%.
Cerulean, which is developing nanopharmaceutical cancer treatments, will invest $26m from the proceeds to advance its lead candidate, which is in phase two clinical testing, and $10m to fund research for a second candidate, with the rest to go to general corporate purposes.