US-based cellular medicine developer SQZ Biotechnologies has floated in a $70.6m initial public offering that scored exits for corporates AIG, Illumina, Alphabet and Orient Life.
The offering consisted of just over 4.4 million shares issued on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and priced at $16.00 each at the foot of the IPO’s $16 to $18 range. The company went public last Friday and its shares closed at $14.50 yesterday, valuing it at approximately $348m.
SQZ is developing cell therapies to treat cancer and infectious diseases based on research conducted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The company will add the IPO proceeds to its cash on hand and allocate $75m to a product candidate called SQZ-PBMC-HPV which is currently in a phase 1 clinical trial for locally advanced and metastatic HPV-positive tumours.
A further $25m will support the first clinical trial for a second candidate, SQZ-AAC-HPV, in HPV-positive tumours as well as the development of other candidates based on the company’s SQZ AAC platform.
SQZ had raised $166m in total, as of a $65m series D round in May this year that was led by Temasek and backed by GV and Illumina Ventures, on behalf of internet technology group Alphabet and genomics technology provider Illumina respectively, as well as NanoDimension, Polaris Partners, JDRF T1D Fund and an unnamed additional fund.
Illumina Ventures and GV had joined insurance firm Orient Life, NanoDimension, Polaris Partners, JDRF T1D Fund, Everblue, Invus, Viva Ventures Biotech, Bridger Healthcare Partners and Global Health Science Fund to provide $72m in series C funding for SQZ in 2018.
The company received $24m in a 2016 series B round featuring GV, Quark Venture, NanoDimension and Polaris Partners that followed $5m from Polaris and 20/20 Healthcare Partners the previous year.
Polaris Partners remains SQZ’s largest shareholder, the owner of an 11.5% stake cut from 14.1% pre-IPO, while AIG Deco Fund, a vehicle for insurance provider AIG, will come out with 6.3%.
SQZ’s other notable investors are Temasek unit Elbrus Investments (7.9% post-IPO%), NanoDimension (6%), Global Health Science Fund (5.3%) and Invus (4.8%).
BofA Securities, Evercore ISI and Stifel are joint book-running managers for the offering while BTIG is lead manager. They have the 30-day option to buy a little over 660,000 additional shares which would lift the size of the IPO to more than $81m.
