US-based broad spectrum antibiotics developer Rib-X Pharmaceuticals has set the price range for its initial public offering (IPO) at between $12 and $14 for each of the 5.77 million shares to be sold.
Rib-X had been expected to raise up to $80m with a market capitalisation of $212m.
Shareholders in Rib-X include SR One, the corporate venturing unit belonging to healthcare conglomerate GlaxoSmithKline which holds 7.4% of Rib-X’s common stock and be reduced to 3%, and MedImmune Ventures, a corporate venture fund operated by pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca (which holds 6.0%).
Also holding stock in Rib-X are private equity (PE) firm Warburg Pincus (45%), and venture capital (VC) firms Saints Capital (23.1%), Oxford Biosciences Partners (13.9%) and Cardinal Partners (5.4%).
Additional investors include VC firm ABS Ventures, VC fund Euclid SR and PE firm Vox Equity Partners. Rib-X has raised about $160m since 2002.
Rib-X currently has two antibiotic candidates in clinical development and plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to advance them.
According to the filing, Rib-X only began to take money this year, taking in $1.4m in the nine months up to the end of September, albeit while making a net loss of $47.5m. The figure was up from a net loss of $26.8m for the whole of 2010, though it does not seem to include a $9m milestone payment received from healthcare company Sanofi in July.