Nkarta Therapeutics, a US-based oncology therapy developer backed by pharmaceutical companies Amgen, Novo and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has raised approximately $290m in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market.
The company priced 16.1 million shares at $18 each, above a $14 to $16 range set last week when it had intended to issue 10 million shares.
Underwriters Cowen, Evercore Group, Stifel Nicolaus and Mizuho Securities have the 30-day option to buy up to 2.1 million additional shares to potentially lift the offering to almost $328m.
Founded in 2015, Nkarta is developing natural killer cell therapies for cancer treatment. It will use $65m of the IPO proceeds for research and development, manufacturing and clinical activities.
The remainder of the proceeds will be spent on external costs for the development of the company’s two lead product candidates: NKX101 and NKX019.
Nkarta raised $15m in a 2015 series A round backed by GSK’s corporate venturing arm, SR One, Novo’s corporate venture capital unit, Novo Ventures, and VC firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
The company collected $12.8m in a 2017 round according to the IPO filing, with $510,000 coming from GSK and $11.3m from a vehicle called Battersea Biotech. Battersea was dissolved later that year, its shares in Nkarta going to SR One, Novo and NEA.
Nkarta raised $114m in a series B round led by Samsara BioCapital in September 2019 that also featured SR One, Amgen subsidiary Amgen Ventures, NEA, Deerfield Management, Life Science Partners, Logos Capital and RA Capital Management. SR One, Novo and NEA each held an 13.5% stake in Nkarta that was reduced to 7.3% in the IPO.