BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Innate Pharma SAS secured a listing on the Eurolist Compartment C of the Paris Euronext stock exchange following the initial public offering it launched last month.

The operation generated gross proceeds of about €30 million (US$38.4 million) for the Marseille, France-based company, and the total could rise to €34 million if the overallotment option is exercised in full.

The offer price was fixed at €4.50 per share, slightly above the mid-point of the indicative price range of €4.15 to €4.80, but the effective price is understood to have moved steadily higher since then. The company currently has a capitalization of about €110 million to €115 million.

The proportion of the 5.5 million shares on offer that was reserved for institutional investors in France and abroad was 2.5 times oversubscribed, while applications from individual investors were worth more than €3 million.

"While we were confident about the value of our offering, this success exceeds our hopes, especially in terms of domestic demand, which represented more than 50 percent of the total demand for shares," Innate's Financial Director, Stéphane Boissel said.

He added that the main institutional demand came from "the strong supporters of biotechnology in continental Europe - Scandinavia, Switzerland and the Benelux countries."