Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, a US-based cancer immunotherapy developer backed by pharmaceutical firm Novo, has floated in a $75m initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market.
The company priced 5 million shares at $15.00 each, at the middle of a $14 to $16 range. It floated on Friday and its shares closed at $13.06 at the end of yesterday, giving it a market capitalisation of about $280m.
Founded in 2015, Checkmate is working on therapeutics intended to treat cancer by harnessing the immune system. Its lead drug candidate, CMP-001, is designed to trigger the body’s immune system when it is injected into tumours.
The IPO proceeds will fund a phase 2 PD-1 refractory melanoma study for CMP-001 as well as its development as a treatment for naïve front-line melanoma and the completion of a phase 2 trial for the candidate in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Checkmate’s most recent funding was an $85m series C round in June this year co-led by Novo, which invested $20m, and venture capital firm Longitude Capital, bringing its overall funding to $175m.
The round included F-Prime Capital, a subsidiary of investment and financial services group Fidelity, as well as BrightEdge, Sofinnova Investments, VenBio Partners, Medicxi, Omega Funds, Clough Capital Partners, Sectoral Asset Management and Decheng Capital.
The company’s earlier funding had come from F-Prime, Decheng Capital, Sofinnova Investments and VenBio Partners.
Novo’s 10.2% stake was diluted to 7.8% in the offering. Checkmate’s other notable investors are Sofinnova and VenBio (16.2% each post-IPO), Longitude Capital (6.8%), Decheng Capital (5.8%), F-Prime (4.3%), Omega Funds and Medicxi (3.9% each).
BofA Securities, Jefferies and BMO Capital Markets are joint book-running managers for the IPO while BTIG is lead manager. They have a 30-day option to buy up to 750,000 additional shares, which would boost its size to approximately $86.3m.
