Biopharmaceutical company Aduro Biotech priced its initial public offering at $17 per share yesterday and will raise $119m when it goes public later today.
Aduro, which is backed by pharmaceutical firms Novartis and Johnson & Johnson, will issue 7 million shares on Nasdaq. The IPO’s underwriters have the 30-day option to buy a further 1.05 million, which would lift the size of the offering to $136.9m.
Founded in 2000, Aduro is developing immunotherapy treatments for cancer. It will use $15m of the proceeds to complete a Phase 2b clinical study of its lead product, CRS-207, a treatment for pancreatic cancer.
A further $40m will go to advancing development of CRS-207 to treat other forms of cancer, and it plans to undertake Phase 2 clinical trials for it in mesothelioma and ovarian cancer. An additional $35m will support the manufacturing of CRS-207 at commercial scale, while $30m will fund the development of other platforms.
Aduro had raised about $185m from investors, including the $25m secured from Novartis last month as part of a strategic partnership. Johnson & Johnson Innovation invested $10m in Aduro’s $52.5m series C round in May 2014.
Novartis’ investment gave it a 2.7% equity stake. Johnson & Johnson Innovation has committed to buying $30m of stock in the IPO and its 6.3% stake will be increased to 8.4%.
Morningside Ventures will remain Audro’s largest external shareholder, though its stake will be diluted from 47% to 41.3%. John E. and Lois A. Rogers’ share will be diluted from 12.1% to 10.9% and Fidelity Investments’ from 7.6% to 6.6%.
BofA Merrill Lynch and Leerink Partners are the joint book-running managers for the proposed offering, while William Blair and Canaccord Genuity are serving as co-managers.