Vir Biotechnology, a US-based immunology drug developer backed by telecommunications group SoftBank, will float today in a $143m initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
The company priced approximately 7.14 million shares on the low end of the IPO’s $20 to $22 range, valuing it at about $2.19bn.
Joint book-running managers Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Securities, Cowen and Company and Barclays Capital have 30 days to buy up to 1.07 million more shares to lift the size of the offering to $164m.
Founded in 2016, Vir is developing immunology drugs to treat infectious diseases and will channel $45m of the IPO proceeds into a phase 1/2 clinical trial for a hepatitis B virus (HBV) treatment called VIR-2218.
About $75m will fund the progress of a monoclonal antibody dubbed VIR-2482 through its own phase 1/2 trial, for influenza, while $30m will support a phase 1 trial for a second HBV candidate, VIR-3434.
Vir announced in late 2017 that it had raised a total of about $500m from investors including SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Arch Venture Partners, Alta Partners, Temasek, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Baillie Gifford and Alaska Permanent Fund.
The IPO filing indicates $70m of the funding, designated as a series A round, came from Vision Fund, $110m from venture capital firm Arch Venture Partners and $7.5m from fellow VC firm Alta Partners.
The company secured approximately $328m in a January 2019 series B round that included $110m from Vision Fund, $50m from Arch Venture Partners and $5m from Alta Partners, according to the IPO filing.
The only two investors with stakes in Vir higher than 5% are Vision Fund, the owner of a 21.1% share that is being diluted to 19.8% in the offering, and Arch Venture Partners, whose 27% stake will be reduced to 25.2%. Alta Partners will come out with a 1.8% share, down from 2%.
