Precision BioSciences, a US-based genome editing technology developer that counts pharmaceutical companies Amgen and Baxter as investors, raised more than $126m in its initial public offering last week.
The offering consisted of 7.9 million shares issued on the Nasdaq Global Select Market priced at $16.00 each, in the middle of its $15 to $17 range, valuing the company at approximately $784m.
Founded in 2006 and spun out of Duke University, Precision Bio is working on genome editing technology in order to create treatments for cancer and genetic diseases, and enhance food production methods.
The company recently submitted an investigational new drug application for its lead product candidate, CD19 CAR T, and plans to begin a phase 1/2a clinical trial for it with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and R/R non-Hodgkin lymphoma this month.
Up to $9m of the IPO proceeds will support the phase 1/2a trial, and between $50m and $52m will go to developing other candidates as well as Precision Bio’s allogeneic CAR T immunotherapy platform.
An additional $18m to $20m will be used to enhance the company’s in vivo gene correction platform, while up to $14m will be allocated to its production facility.
The offering comes after Precision Bio raised $39.6m in convertible note financing from investors including asset management firm ArrowMark Partners last month, according to the IPO prospectus.
The company closed a $110m series B round featuring Amgen subsidiary Amgen Investments and F-Prime Capital Partners, part of investment and financial services group Fidelity, as well as RA Capital, VenBio and RFS Partners in July 2018, it revealed in the initial IPO filing.
VenBio led Precision Bio’s $25.6m series A round in 2015, investing alongside Amgen Ventures, Baxter Ventures, which functions as Baxter’s corporate venturing unit, F-Prime, Osage University Partners, Longevity Fund and two unnamed others.
Precision Bio’s largest external investor is VenBio, the owner of an 11% stake that was cut to 8.6% in the offering, followed by company co-founder and chief technology officer Jeff Smith (8.5%) and F-Prime (7.5%).
Joint book-running managers JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Barclays have a 30-day option to buy almost 1.2 million more shares, which would lift the IPO’s size to $145m. Precision Bio floated on Thursday and its shares briefly rose to $19.00 before closing at $17.95 on Friday.
