Frequency Therapeutics, a US-based degenerative disease drug developer backed by life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, went public today in an $84m initial public offering.
The company floated at the foot of the $14 to $16 range it set last month, while reducing the number of shares in the IPO from 6.7 million to 6 million. It is valued at approximately $424m in the offering.
Frequency is developing regenerative medicines designed to use progenitor cell activation to repair damage caused by degenerative diseases. It had raised $147m in venture capital prior to the flotation.
The IPO proceeds will help to fund a phase 2a clinical trial for the company’s lead candidate, X-322, which is intended to restore hearing in patients with sensorineural hearing loss by regenerating auditory hair cells. It is also working on a multiple sclerosis treatment.
Perceptive Advisors led Frequency’s last round, a $62m series C in July this year featuring Mizuho Securities Principal Investment, RTW Investments, Deerfield Management, Polaris Founders Capital, Taiwania Capital Management, Axil Capital and CoBro Ventures.
The latter four had already backed the company’s $42m series B round six months earlier, alongside Alexandria Real Estate Equities vehicle Alexandria Venture Investments, Korean Investment Partnership and Yonjin Capital.
Frequency had already received $32m in a 2017 series A round led by CoBro Ventures that included Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Morningside Ventures, Emigrant Capital and Korean Investment Partnership.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ stake was below 5% prior to the offering, the company’s largest investors being Perceptive Advisors, which emerges with a 6.2% stake down from 7.7%, and Taiwania Capital, whose 5.7% stake was diluted to 4.6%.
Joint book-running managers JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Cowen have the 30-day option to buy another 900,000 shares to boost the size of the offering to $96.6m.
