US-based cancer therapy developer Aura Biosciences went public on Friday in a $75.6m initial public offering representing an exit for pharmaceutical firms Chiesi Group, Li-Cor Biosciences and Lundbeck.
The company increased the number of shares in the offering from 5 million to 5.4 million and priced them at the foot of the IPO’s $14 to $16 range. They closed at $15.28 on Aura’s first day of trading on the Nasdaq Global Market on Friday, giving it a market cap of about $435m.
Aura is working on virus-like drug conjugates intended to form the basis of cancer therapeutics. Up to $60m of the IPO proceeds will go to clinical trials for its lead drug candidate, AU-011, in choroidal melanoma and non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.
The offering came in the wake of approximately $191m in funding, $80m having come in a March 2021 round featuring Lundbeck and Chiesi, which invested through Lundbeckfonden Ventures and Chiesi Ventures respectively.
Matrix Capital Management and Surveyor Capital co-led the round, which included Rock Springs Capital, Adage Capital Management, Velosity Capital, Medicxi, Advent Life Sciences, Arix Bioscience, Columbus Venture Partners and Ysios Capital.
Li-Cor took part in Aura’s $30m series C round in 2017 alongside Lundbeckfonden Ventures, Chiesi Ventures, Arix Bioscience and Alexandria Venture Investments, part of life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
The company’s largest investors post-IPO are Medicxi and Matrix Capital Management Master Fund (8.2% each), Surveyor Capital’s Citadel-Multi Strategy Equities Master Fund (6.5%), Advent Life Sciences (6.5%), Lundbeckfond Invest (6.2%), Arix (5.3%) and Chiesi Ventures (5.1%).
Joint book-running managers Cowen, SVB Leerink and Evercore ISI and lead manager BTIG have the 30-day option to acquire an additional 810,000 shares, potentially hiking the size of the offering to approximately $87m.
