Connect Biopharma, a China-based inflammatory disease drug developer backed by pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, floated on the Nasdaq Global Market in a $191m initial public offering on Friday.
The company priced almost 11.3 million American depositary shares at $17 per share. They opened at $19.55 and closed at $18.49 at the end of its first day of trading, giving Connect Bio a market capitalisation of roughly $1bn.
Connect Bio is using research based on the T Cell receptor protein complex to develop therapeutics to treat chronic inflammatory diseases. Its lead drug candidate is focused on treating atopic dermatitis and asthma.
The IPO proceeds will finance research and development activities as well as the development of Connect Bio’s preclinical product candidates.
The company had raised $115m in an August 2020 series C round led by RA Capital Management that included Eli Lilly, Boxer Capital, HBM Healthcare Investments and Qiming Venture Partners.
Connect Bio pulled in $55m through a series B round led by Advantech Capital and backed by Qiming Venture Partners, Northern Light Venture Capital and Cowin Venture Capital in early 2019.
Qiming Venture Partners led a $20m series A round for the company in 2017 that included Northern Light Venture Capital, Lapam Capital and Cowin Venture Capital, after Cowin, Anlongmed Fund and XinYue Equity had supplied $5m in earlier funding.
Wubin (Bill) Pan, chairman and president of Connect Bio, is its largest shareholder, his BioFortune vehicle holding a 10.7% stake diluted from 13.3%. Its other main shareholders are Shanghai Minhui Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership (9.5% post-IPO), Qiming Venture Partners (8.7%), Advantech Capital (8.5%) and RA Capital (6.5%).
Jefferies, SVB Leerink, Piper Sandler and China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities are joint book-running managers for the IPO. They have the 30-day option to purchase 1.69 million additional shares to hypothetically boost the size of the offering to approximately $220m.