Silverback Therapeutics, a US-based cancer immunotherapy developer that counts pharmaceutical firms Celgene and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) among its investors, closed its initial public offering at nearly $278m yesterday.
The company secured about $242m when it floated on the Nasdaq Global Market last week, issuing 11.5 million shares priced at $21.00 each, and they closed trading at $31.33 last night.
Joint book-running managers Goldman Sachs, SVB Leerink and Stifel and lead manager HC Wainwright have now taken up the option to buy almost 1.73 million more shares at the IPO price. The latest share price means Silverback is now valued at $1.09bn.
Silverback’s technology platform is used by the company to develop therapeutics that can be targeted at specific tissue to treat cancer as well as chronic viral infections. Its lead drug candidate is in a phase 1/1b clinical trial for solid tumours.
The company’s largest shareholders are OrbiMed, with a stake now sized at 21.7%, USVP (6.2%), Nextech Invest (4.8%), Hunt Technology Ventures (4.2%), Pontifax (3.6%) and EcoR1 Capital (3.4%)
The initial public offering came after $211m in funding for Silverback across three rounds between September 2018 and September this year, its backers including Celgene, BMS and Alexandria Venture Investments, a vehicle for life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
