US-based stem cell medicine developer Sana Biotechnology raised almost $588m on Wednesday in an upsized initial public offering representing an exit for GV, a subsidiary of internet and technology group Alphabet.
The company issued 23.5 million shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, up from a planned 15 million, priced at $25.00 each, above the $20 to $23 range set last week.
The IPO price valued Sana Bio at $4.9bn and its shares surged 40% on the first day of trading to close at $35.10, giving it a market cap above $6.4bn. It is the largest IPO ever for a preclinical biotech company according to Axios.
Sana Bio is developing cell therapies that are capable of evading the body’s own immune system, thereby avoiding undesired immune responses.
The company will put $190m of the IPO proceeds into development of its in vivo cell engineering platform and related candidates, $190m toward its ex vivo cell engineering platform and related assets, $80m to expanding its manufacturing capabilities and $40m to research and development.
The offering follows more than $700m in funding Sana Bio disclosed in June 2020, from backers including GV, financial services and investment group Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital unit, Arch Venture Partners, Baillie Gifford, Flagship Pioneering and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP).
Sana CEO Steve Harr, chairman Hans Bishop and general counsel James MacDonald are also all investors in the company, as are Osage University Partners, Alaska Permanent Fund, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, Bezos Expeditions, Omega Funds, Altitude Life Science Ventures and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
Arch Venture Partners’ stake has been diluted from 27.5% to 24% in the offering. The company’s other notable investors are Flagship Pioneering (which now owns 18.6%), CPP (5.1%), Steve Harr (4.9%) and F-Prime (4.5%).
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and BofA Securities are the joint book-running managers for the IPO and have a 30-day option to purchase up to 3.5 million additional shares that could lift the size of the offering to nearly $676m.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.