Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, a US-based healthcare company backed by Foley Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of law firm Foley & Lardner, has raised $70.4m in its flotation on October 10.
Kythera sold 4.4 million shares at $16 each. The company’s main product is an injectable drug for the reduction of a type of fat, which normally appears as “double chin.” The flotation price gives the company a market capitalisation of about $278m.
The flotation was advised by US-based banks JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Leerink Swann, and Lazard Capital Markets.
The company is backed by venture firms Versant (19.5% before IPO), Arch (16.4%), Prospect Venture Partners (14.75%), Jafco (6.7%) and Fidelity Contrafund (11.1%).
In 2011 the company had licence income of $12.9m and made a loss of $11.2m.
Kythera closed its $37.4m series D round of financing in September last year from a pool of investors including Foley Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of law firm Foley & Lardner intended to invest in the firm’s clients, and two partners of peer Latham & Watkins as well as the latter firm’s investment partnership, VP Company Investments 2008.
Filling out the series D investors were private equity fund Jafco, venture capital (VC) firms Versant Ventures, Invus Financial Advisors, Prospect Venture Partners, Arch Venture Partners, hedge funds BBT Capital Management/Apothecray Capital, Partner Funds Management, and VC fund Altitude Life Science Ventures.
Kythera previously raised $30m in each of its series B and C rounds, in July 2006 and May 2008 respectively, from a similar pool of venture capital backers, although the academic venturing unit the UCLA Venture fund and WS Investments, the corporate venturing unit for law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, both featured in the earlier rounds.