Beam Therapeutics, a US-based genetic therapy developer backed by internet and technology group Alphabet, priced its shares at $17.00 each for a $180m initial public offering today.
The company increased the number of shares in the offering from 9.25 million to nearly 10.6 million and is floating on the Nasdaq Global Select Market at the top of its $15 to $17 range.
Founded in 2017, Beam is working on treatments for serious diseases, exploiting genomic base editing technology able to target point mutations: a factor it says accounts for almost 60% of genetic errors in humans that are linked to disease.
The company was spun out of Harvard University to advance work by David Liu, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at the institution, and Feng Zhang a core institute member at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Approximately $79m of the IPO proceeds and Beam’s existing cash reserves have been allocated to research and development, including preclinical and potential proof-of-concept studies.
Another $66m will fund investigational new drug-enabling studies and potential clinical trials while $51m will be used to further develop the company’s drug discovery platform and broaden its product pipeline.
Beam completed a $135m series B round in March 2019 that was backed by GV, an early-stage investment arm of Alphabet, and Eight Roads Ventures, part of investment and financial services group Fidelity.
Redmile Group, Omega Funds, Cormorant Asset Management and Altitude Life Science Ventures also participated in the series B round.
Another Fidelity unit, F-Prime Capital, took part in an $88.6m series A round for the company that closed in October 2018, investing alongside Hillhouse Capital, Temasek and Arch Venture Partners.
Gene editing technology producer Editas and microbiome therapeutics developer Bio Palette received shares in Beam through licensing agreements signed in May 2018 and March 2019 respectively.
Arch Venture Partners was Beam’s largest shareholder pre-IPO, with a 21.1% stake, followed by F-Prime Capital (17.8%), David Liu (8.4%), Hillhouse Capital (6.8%), co-founder Feng Zhang (6.6%) and Temasek (6.4%).
JP Morgan, Jefferies and Barclays are joint book-running managers for the offering and Wedbush PacGrow is lead manager. They have the 30 day-option to buy almost 1.59 million additional shares which, if exercised in full, would boost the size of the IPO to $207m.
