Israel-based cellular therapy developer Gamida Cell has floated in a $50m initial public offering in which investors including pharmaceutical company Novartis bought $37.5m of the shares.
The company issued 6.25 million shares on the Nasdaq Global Market priced at $8.00 each, after originally setting a $13 to $15 range for 3.6 million shares earlier this month, giving it a market capitalisation of approximately $200m.
Novartis and Clal Biotechnology Industries (CBI), a subsidiary of conglomerate Access Industries, were both among the existing backers that invested in the offering.
Founded in 1998, Gamida is developing cellular medicines to treat cancer as well as haematologic diseases that affect the blood and organs that form blood.
The company plans to put $20m to $30m of the IPO proceeds into a phase 3 clinical trial for NiCord, a blood cell therapy intended to treat haematologic malignancies. A further $5m to $10m will support development of a second candidate, NAM-NK.
The IPO comes after at least $101m of venture funding, including $10m in a 2012 series E round featuring CBI, pharmaceutical firms Teva and Amgen, medical device maker Elbit Imaging, Israel Healthcare Venture, Denali Ventures and Auriga Ventures.
Novartis paid $35m for a 15% stake in Gamida two years later before investing $8m in a $40m round in June 2017. Investment firm Shavit Capital led the round, which also featured CBI, Israel Healthcare Ventures, VMS Investment Group and Israel Biotech Fund.
Novartis bought $7m of shares in the offering and its stake was diluted from 22.9% to 20.7% but Access invested $25m to increase its stake from 16.4% to 27.9%. Shavit Capital sold approximately $600,000 of shares and its stake was cut from 17.6% to 11.5%.
None of the company’s other major investors bought or sold stock in the offering. Elbit subsidiary Elbit Cord Blood Limited Partnership has an 11.1% stake post-IPO, VMS Investment 11.3% and Israel HealthCare Ventures 7.9%.
Joint book-running managers BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets and co-lead managers Needham & Company and Oppenheimer have the 30-day option to acquire approximately 938,000 more shares, boosting the IPO’s size to $63.1m.
Gamida’s shares opened at $8.00 on their first day of trading on Friday and closed at $10.06 yesterday.
