DUBLIN – AC Immune SA is seeking up to $59 million in a Nasdaq IPO to help fund its broad portfolio of therapeutics and diagnostics in development for neurodegenerative and central nervous system (CNS) disorders.
The Lausanne, Switzerland-based firm is vying with Adienne Pharma & Biotech SA to become the first Swiss firm to complete an IPO this year. Earlier this week, Lugano-based Adienne unveiled plans to go public on the Swiss Stock Exchange in Zurich, without specifying any details of the offering.
AC Immune plans to offer 4,545,456 new shares, for which it has set an indicative price range of $11 to $13 per share. The midpoint of the offering would realize gross proceeds of just over $54.5 million.
An additional 681,818 shares are available to cover overallotments. Even before the company commences a book build, the deal is largely, if not fully, in the bag. Some existing investors have indicated a willingness to acquire up to $30 million of the shares on offer.
Although it has raised about $130 million in equity funding since its formation in 2003, AC Immune has eschewed traditional venture capital investment. A look at its roster of shareholders – a closely held secret until now – reveals why. Its largest shareholder, with a 36.5 percent stake, is Walldorf, Germany-based Dievini Hopp Biotech Holding GmbH & Co KG, an investment vehicle controlled by the software billionaire Dietmar Hopp and his family. Swiss life sciences billionaire Rudolf Maag is the second largest shareholder – his Basel, Switzerland-based investment vehicle Varuma AG holds a 23.1 percent stake.
The company currently holds CHF96.4 million (US$99.1 million) in cash, including a CHF14 million milestone it received in July from the Genentech arm of Roche Holding AG, also of Basel, following the start of a phase I trial in Alzheimer's disease of an anti-tau antibody. It closed a $43.5 million series E round in May, which was priced at $9.64 per share. (See BioWorld Today, May 10, 2016.)
Adienne's funding ambitions are unclear at this point. The company, which already markets in Europe Tepadina, an alkylating agent used in conditioning regimens for patients undergoing bone marrow transplant, is seeking cash to take forward a pipeline of drugs for orphan immunological and hematological indications. The timing of its move is doubtless linked to its withdrawal in July of a European marketing authorization application for its drug candidate begelomab, an anti-CD26 antibody in development for steroid-resistant acute graft-vs.-host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplant. It initially sought conditional approval on the basis of data from just 29 patients. It now plans to resubmit once it has completed an ongoing phase II/III trial, which is recruiting 184 patients.
If Adienne's IPO gets airborne, it will be the first such transaction to take place in Switzerland this year – the last biotech listing on the SIX was that of Milan, Italy-based Cassiopea SpA in July 2015. New listings of European firms on Nasdaq have also been sparse this year – so far, just one has made the trip. Merus NV, of Utrecht, the Netherlands, raised $55 million in May. In contrast, 10 European firms (including firms already listed in Europe) raised just over $1.1 billion in Nasdaq IPOs in 2015. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 15, 2016.)
In other funding news, Bionor Pharma ASA said it planned to raise NOK52.5 million (US$6.4 million) on the Oslo Børs in a rights issue comprising 525 million shares priced at NOK0.10 per share. The funds will be used to advanced its therapeutic HIV vaccine Vacc-4x.