Mirna Therapeutics, a US-based oncology drug developer backed by several pharmaceutical companies, will raise $43.75m when it goes public today after pricing its initial public offering at $7.00 per share.
Mirna will issue 6.25 million shares on Nasdaq in an IPO priced significantly lower than the $13 to $15 range the company set in mid-September.
Founded in 2007, Mirna is working on cancer treatments based on micro RNAs, or short ribonucleic acid molecules. It claims its lead product candidate, MRX34, which is currently in Phase 1 clinical trials, is the first ever microRNA mimic to enter clinical development
The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering and its remaining cash in hand to advance MRX34 through Phase 1 trials and initiate Phase 2 trials. It will also seek to bring a second mimic-based product to the clinical testing stage.
Mirna had raised about $78m in equity and $15m in grant funding prior to the IPO, including a $34.5m series C round in 2012 backed by Pfizer Venture Investments, pharmaceutical firm Pfizer’s corporate venturing unit, Correlation Ventures, Osage University Partners and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Pfizer Ventures returned for a $41.8m series D round in May 2015 led by Baxter Ventures, the investment arm of pharmaceutical company Baxter, which included drug producer Celgene, Santé Ventures, Morningside Ventures, Rock Springs Capital, Sofinnova Ventures, NEA, Osage and Correlation Ventures.
Pfizer is investing approximately $6.7m in the IPO but its stake will still be cut from 15% to 12.4%, while Baxter subsidiary Baxalta will invest $1m and see its share reduced from 5.3% to 3.6%.
The company’s other notable shareholders include Sofinnova and NEA, which will each have a 14.8% stake post-IPO, and Government of Texas (5.6%).
Mirna’s existing shareholders are together buying about 3.9 million shares in the offering, while Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas will pay approximately $16.8m for an 11.9% share in a private placement concurrent to the IPO.
Citigroup and Leerink Partners are joint book-running managers for the IPO, while Oppenheimer and Cantor Fitzgerald are serving as co-managers. They have a 30-day option to buy almost 940,000 additional shares, which would boost the size of the offering to $50.3m.