Terns Pharmaceuticals, a US-based liver disease therapeutics developer that counts pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly as its largest investor, has secured approximately $128m in its initial public offering.
The offering consisted of 7.5 million shares issued on the Nasdaq Global Market priced at the top of its $15 to $17 range. The company floated on Friday last week and its shares closed at $19.79 last night to give the company a market capitalisation of $473m.
Founded in 2017, Terns is developing treatments for chronic liver diseases such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). It will put $15m of the IPO proceeds into completion of a phase 2a clinical trial for its lead drug candidate, TERN-101, in NASH.
Another $30m will fund clinical trials for a second candidate, TERN-501, while $10m will go to a phase 1b trial for a third, TERN-201.
The offering comes after $207m in funding, including $30m from Eli Lilly subsidiary Lilly Asia Ventures at its 2017 launch. Vivo Capital and OrbiMed co-led an $80m series B round for Terns in 2018 that also featured Lilly Asia Ventures and Decheng Capital.
Deerfield Management led the company’s series C round last month, sized at $97.7m according to the IPO filing, investing with Lilly Asia Ventures, OrbiMed, Vivo Capital, Samsara Capital, Suvretta Capital Management and unnamed others.
Lilly Asia Ventures’ 37.6% stake was diluted to 25.8% in the offering. Terns’ other notable investors are OrbiMed (13.8% post-IPO), Vivo Capital (9.2%) and Deerfield (7.2%).
Joint bookrunning managers JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Cowen have the 30-day option to buy more than 1.12 million additional shares which would boost the size of the offering to almost $147m.
Photo courtesy of Terns Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
