Restorbio, a US-based developer of treatments for ageing-related diseases, closed an initial public offering that scored an exit for pharmaceutical firm Novartis at approximately $97.8m yesterday.
The IPO initially consisted of almost 5.7 million shares being issued on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday priced at $15.00 each, the middle of the offering’s $14 to $16 range, raising just over $85m.
Joint book-running managers BofA Merrill Lynch, Leerink Partners and Evercore ISI have joined co-manager Wedbush PacGrow to buy another 850,000 shares. The company’s stock is at $16.23 at time of publication, giving it a $436m market cap.
Restorbio is working on therapeutics that will combat ageing-related diseases such as respiratory tract infections (RTIs) which affect patients as their immune systems decline. It was co-founded by biopharmaceutical company PureTech Health in 2016.
The company will put $85m of the IPO proceeds into developing its lead candidate, RTB101, completing a phase 2b trial for RTIs either on its own or in conjunction with an enzyme inhibitor called everolimus, as well as a possible phase 3 trial. Additional cash will go to developing RTB101 for other indications.
PureTech was the company’s largest shareholder pre-IPO with a 44.4% stake. Novartis, which licensed the rights to Restorbio’s research program to it in March 2017, owned a 7.4% stake.
PureTech had invested $19m in Restorbio across three series A tranches between March and October 2017 according to the IPO prospectus, alongside $6m from life sciences investment firm OrbiMed.
OrbiMed held a 20% stake in Restorbio pre-IPO after investing $20m in October 2017 as part of a $40m series B round featuring Fidelity Management & Research Company, Nest Bio Rock, Quan Capital and Springs Capital that closed the following month.