Imara, the US-based hemoglobinopathy drug developer backed by pharmaceutical firms Lundbeck and Pfizer, went public yesterday in a $75.2m initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
The offering consisted of 4.7 million shares priced at $16.00 each, increasing the number slightly from 4.45 million. The company floated at the low end of the IPO’s $16 to $18 range and the IPO valued it at approximately $265m.
Founded in 2016, Imara is developing therapeutics for inherited genetic disorders of the haemoglobin, which carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body through red blood cells.
The company has allocated $42m of the IPO proceeds to advancing a drug candidate called IMR-687 for the treatment of sickle cell disease while $40m will fund work on it as a treatment for a blood disorder known as b-thalassemia,
IMR-687 is expected to enter phase 2b clinical trials for both conditions in the first half of this year. A further $22m will go to other research costs.
The IPO comes in the wake of at least $76m in funding. Pfizer and Lundbeck took part in its last round, a series B described at the time as being $63m in size but revealed through the IPO filing to be $45.8m, through their Pfizer Ventures and Lundbeckfonden Ventures units.
OrbiMed and Arix Bioscience co-led the round, which included Alexandria Venture Investments – part of real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities – New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Bay City Capital, RA Capital and Rock Springs Capital.
Imara had already received $31.5m (according to the IPO filing) in a 2016 series A round backed by Lundbeckfond Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, NEA and Bay City Capital.
Lundbeckfond Invest and Pfizer Ventures owned stakes in Imara each sized at 7.5% post-IPO. Its other notable shareholders are NEA (21.4%), OrbiMed (9.6%), Arix Bioscience (8.2%), RA Capital (5%) and Bay City Capital (4.2%).
Joint book-running managers Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and SVB Leerink have the 30-day option to acquire an additional 705,000 shares to lift the offering to $86.5m. Its shares are trading at $15.90 at time of writing.
