Cidara Therapeutics, a US-based biotechnology company backed by pharmaceutical company Seachaid Pharmaceuticals, raised $76.8m in its initial public offering yesterday.
The company issued 4.8 million shares on Nasdaq priced at $16.00 each, the top of its range. It had previously intended to issue 4 million shares, according to a filing last week.
Cidara is developing anti-infectives to treat diseases not addressed by current therapeutics. Its lead product candidate, CD-101, is a treatment for fungal infections that will be advanced through Phase 2 clinical trials with $20m of the proceeds from the IPO.
A further $15m will fund preclinical development and studies of additional candidates that are based on Cidara’s Cloudbreak immunotherapy platform. It plans to spend $10m on expanding the platform itself.
Seachaid’s stake in the company, which it received in May 2014 in return for intellectual property, will be diluted from 7.7% to 5.1% through the offering.
Cidara’s largest shareholder will remain 5AM Ventures (a 14.4% stake post-IPO), and other notable shareholders include Fidelity Investments (9.3%), InterWest Partners (8.3%) and Frazier Healthcare (8%). It had raised $74m in venture capital funding since it was formed in 2012.
Jefferies and Leerink Partners are the joint book-running managers for the IPO, while Wedbush PacGrow is lead manager and Needham & Company and BTIG the co-managers. They have the 30-day option to buy another 720,000 shares, which would boost the size of the offering to approximately $88.3m.