Global venture company, Arix Bioscience (MAIN:ARIX) , announced today the pricing of its initial public offering of clinical-stage biotechnology firm, Imara, its fifth public listing from a portfolio company.
Imara’s common stock is expected to begin trading on The Nasdaq Global Select Market today under the ticker symbol “IMRA”.
Its IPO will be made up 4,700,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $16.00 per share for aggregate gross proceeds of $75.2 million.
As a result of the IPO, Arix’s existing holding in Imara, which was valued at £10.7 million at 31 December 2019, will increase by £4.3m, or 3.1p per share.
Arix has agreed to invest $3m (£2.3m) in the IPO to retain a total stake of 9.4% in Imara giving a total new valuation of £19.4m, compared to a cost of £13.7m, this morning’s statement outlined
Shares in Arix Bioscience were trading flat at 77p during Thursday trading.
Massachusetts-based Imara, which develops and commercialises novel therapeutics to treat rare inherited genetic disorders of hemoglobin, expects to use the net proceeds from the IPO to advance development of its lead product candidate, IMR-687.
IMR-687 is an oral, once-per-day treatment candidate for the treatment for sickle cell disease.
“Imara’s lead candidate IMR-687 has potential to transform outcomes for people living with sickle cell disease by working on both the white-cell and red-cell aspects of the disease," said Joe Anderson, CEO of Arix.
He added, "This financing is an important milestone for Imara, with the company planning to use proceeds to advance clinical development of IMR-687 in both sickle cell disease and thalassemia.”
Imara announced that it had filed a registration statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed IPO in the US earlier this year in February.
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