Selecta Biosciences, a US-based biopharmaceutical company backed by pharmaceutical firm Sanofi, has raised $70m in an initial public offering on Nasdaq, pricing five million shares at $14 each.
The price represented the lower end of the range set by Selecta on Monday, but the number of shares in the offering was increased from 4.25 million.
Selecta is developing synthetic vaccine particle technology to treat rare and serious diseases by modulating the immune system. It will spend $23m of the IPO proceeds on scaling manufacturing capacity and executing a phase 2 clinical trial for its lead product candidate, a gout treatment called SEL-212.
An additional $10m will fund manufacturing capacity and a phase 1 trial for its first gene therapy program, while any leftover cash will support a phase 3 trial for SEL-212 or development of a second gene therapy program.
Selecta had raised $117m in venture funding, $38m of which came from a September 2015 series E round featuring Sanofi subsidiary Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures, though the corporate venturing unit holds a stake in the company sized at under 5%.
OrbiMed Advisors, Ridgeback Capital Management, Osage University Partners, AJU IB Investment, Sphera Global Health Care Fund, Rusnano, Flagship Ventures, NanoDimension, Leukon Investments and Polaris Venture Partners are also among Selecta’s investors.
Polaris Venture Partners is the company’s largest shareholder, with a 13.9% stake pre-IPO. Other notable backers include Flagship Ventures (13.1%), Rusnano (10.7%), OrbiMed (9.9%), Tas Partners and Leukon Partners (a combined 7.6%) and NanoDimension (5.2%).
UBS Investment Bank and Stifel are joint book-running managers for the offering, while Canaccord Genuity and Needham & Company are the co-managers.