Protagonist Therapeutics, a US-headquartered peptide-based drug developer backed by Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Pharmstandard, raised $90m when it priced its initial public offering at $12 per share on Wednesday.
The shares were priced at the middle of the range, and Protagonist issued 7.5 million, a good deal more than the 5.8 million it had originally intended. The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy a further 1.1 million shares, which would boost the size of the IPO to $103.5m.
Protagonist is working on peptide-based new chemical entities that will form the basis for oral drugs that will target the biological pathways aimed for by currently available injectable antibody drugs.
The company’s first two drug candidates, PTG-100 and PTG-200, are being developed to treat inflammatory bowel disease. The largest portion of the IPO proceeds will support a phase 2b clinical trial for PTG-100.
Additional funds will go to advancing PTG-200 to the start of a phase 1 trial, finishing Investigational New Drug-enabling studies for PTG-300 and R&D activities for further candidates.
Protagonist, which was founded in Australia in 2001, had raised $67m in funding since 2006. Lilly Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, was among the investors in a $9m series A round in 2006 that included Starfish Ventures and QIC BioVentures.
Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC), the strategic investment subsidiary of healthcare group Johnson & Johnson, led an $18m series B round for Protagonist in 2013 also backed by pharmaceutical firm Pharmstandard, Lilly Ventures and Starfish.
Venture capital firm Canaan Partners came aboard in July 2015, leading a $40m round in which Protagonist’s series B backers were also joined by Adage Capital Management, RA Capital Management and Foresite Capital
JJDC held a 20.8% stake in Protagonist pre-IPO, slightly less than the company’s largest shareholder, Canaan Partners, which owned 20.9%. Lilly Ventures held 16.9%, Pharmstandard 8.5%, Adage Capital 9.3%, Starfish 7.8% and RA Capital 7.7%.
Leerink Partners, Barclays Capital and BMO Capital Markets are joint book-running managers for the offering. Protagonist’s stock closed at $11.70 on its first day of trading on Nasdaq yesterday.