Allogene Therapeutics, a US-based cancer drug developer that counts Pfizer and Gilead Sciences among its investors, raised $324m in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market yesterday.
The offering consisted of 18 million shares priced at $18.00 each, at the top of its $16 to $18 range, giving Allogene a market capitalisation of approximately $2.07bn. The company’s shares closed at $25.00 yesterday at the end of its first day of trading.
Founded earlier this year, Allogene is working on allogeneic T cell therapies licensed from Pfizer that are intended to target and kill cancer cells. The treatment will involve engineering T-cells from healthy donors, meaning they can be used on any patient rather than needing to be personalised.
The company will use $65m of the proceeds to support ongoing clinical trials for UCART19, a drug it is developing in partnership with pharmaceutical group Servier. Another $40m will be put toward a trial for a second candidate, ALLO-501, and $60m for a third called ALLO-715.
Additional cash will go to the transition process from Pfizer, which will include building new facilities, as well as internal research and development.
Allogene had raised $300m when it emerged from stealth in April this year, half of which came from TPG Carthage Holdings, a subsidiary of private equity group TPG, according to the IPO prospectus. TPG Carthage’s stake was diluted from 25.1% to 19.5% in the offering.
Pfizer invested $35m in the April round but the provision of its intellectual property gave it a 24.1% stake that was cut to 19.1%. Gilead and Vida Ventures each paid $50m for 8.4% stakes diluted to 6.9% while Seaview Trust held 8.9%, reduced to 6.9%.
Joint-book running managers Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Securities, Cowen and Company and Jefferies have a 30-day option to buy another 2.7 million shares, increasing the size of the offering to almost $373m.
