Sana joins Nasdaq with blockbuster $587M IPO
Sana Biotechnology lifted $587.5 million in an initial public offering, a major money haul that the 3-year-previous Seattle corporation will use to keep on a quest to treat sickness utilizing slicing-edge gene engineering.
The company, led by previous executives of Juno Therapeutics, priced 23.5 million shares at $25 for each share on Wednesday night. That exceeded the price focus on variety set before in the week when the business explained it was seeking to value at $23 to 24 per share. When the corporation initial submitted to go general public last month, it meant to elevate up to $150 million.
Obviously, Wall Road appreciated what they saw in Sana, a revenue-losing enterprise that has yet to drive any income. Dan Primack at Axios, who pegged the put up IPO valuation at $4.9 billion, observed that Sana is “the largest-ever IPO for a preclinical biotech company.”
The stock will get started investing now on Nasdaq beneath the ticker SANA.
While Sana claims its gene enhancing technologies will be applicable to a amount of disorders, some of its most highly developed exploration is getting completed all around most cancers. Sana ideas to file new drug applications “for many therapies in a spectrum of cancers about the coming a long time,” noting in the SEC submitting that individuals programs could commence as early as 2022.
“Our prolonged-term aspirations are to be able to command or modify any gene in the overall body, to exchange any mobile that is ruined or lacking, and to markedly increase entry to cellular and gene-primarily based medications,” the business wrote in its IPO prospectus.
At the GeekWire Summit previous October, Sana CEO Steve Harr explained how they are primarily turning the body into its have “bioreactor,” which can fend off disorder.
“You provide the equipment to help your overall body to make its very own drugs,” Harr reported at the time. The company’s internet site also lists three aims: “repair and command genes in any cell change any mobile in the body and tear down boundaries to accessing our personal therapies.”
On the other hand, gene enhancing is not accepted by some, a risk component that Sana points out in its IPO submitting.
“Public perception may perhaps be motivated by statements that gene editing is unsafe, and goods incorporating gene enhancing may possibly not acquire the acceptance of the general public or the clinical community,” the organization wrote in its filing. If individuals perceptions acquire root, Sana notes that some authorities companies may perhaps prohibit treatment options that employ gene modifying, or clinical experts may not prescribe it.
As GeekWire reported previously this 7 days, Sana is one of a kind in that the IPO is coming a lot less than a few many years after it was started. It ordinarily requires far more than eight many years to access that milestone.
Harr retains a 4.9% stake in Sana, even though the largest shareholder is Arch Undertaking Associates at 24.2%. Flagship Pioneer Funds retains 18.8%. The business beforehand raised far more than $700 million in venture capital, earning it one particular of the most closely-funded Seattle place businesses to go general public. It is also the initial Washington corporation to go community in 2021, becoming a member of 4 other businesses — Athira Pharma, ZoomInfo, Accolade and Silverback Therapeutics — that executed perfectly in their inventory marketplace debuts final yr.
You can listen to a snippet of Harr’s talk from the GeekWire Summit here:
