Wave Life Sciences, a US-based nucleic acid therapeutic developer backed by contract research organisation Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL), raised $102m in an initial public offering on Nasdaq yesterday.
Wave priced 6.375 million shares at $16.00 each, the middle of the IPO’s $15 to $17 range. Almost 960,000 additional shares are available for the offering’s underwriters to buy in the next 30 days, which could raise the size of the offering to $117.3m.
Founded in 2014, Wave has built a synthetic chemistry platform it is using to develop nucleic acid therapeutic candidates to combat diseases that have proven hard to treat with small molecule drugs or biologics
The company plans to use $24.7m of the IPO proceeds to fund phase 1 clinical trials for two of its product candidates. A further $25.8m will go to clinical studies for two other drug programs.
SNBL led an $18m series A round for Wave in February this year that also included RA Capital Management and Kagoshima Shinsangyo Sosei Investment.
RA Capital and Kagoshima Shinsangyo Sosei returned for a $66m series B round in August featuring Foresite Capital, Fidelity Management and Research (FMR), New Leaf Venture Partners, Redmile Group, Jennison Associates, Cormorant Asset Management and Clough Capital Partners.
SNBL held a 12.8% stake in Wave prior to the offering that was diluted to 8.9%. RA Capital held a 35.8% share that was diluted to 24.9%. Other notable shareholders include Kagoshima Shinsangyo Sosei (a 15.1% stake post-IPO), Foresite Capital (6.4%) and FMR (5.8%).
Jefferies and Leerink Partners are joint book-running managers for the IPO, while JMP Securities and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey are co-managers. Wave opened at $17.05 yesterday and rose to $17.90 before closing at $15.99.