Cambridge biotechnology company Voyager Therapeutics hit the market with a slightly downsized $70 million initial public offering. The company sold 5 million shares priced at $14 apiece; just a hair lower than the projected $15 to $17 per share the company was hoping to raise.
Voyager plans to use the funding to build out its Phase 1 gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease. It’s partnered out with Sanofi to do so. Voyager also has early stage programs for ALS, Friedreich’s ataxia, Huntington’s disease and spinal muscular atrophy in the works. Voyager has been a Third Rock-backed company, with the venture firm controlling 53 percent of the shares in the company prior to IPO.
Voyager’s is still a solid raise, given Wall Street’s lackluster interest in the biotech sector in recent weeks. By the same token, Wave Life Sciences just priced out a slightly upsized $102 million IPO this week, at $16 per share.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
Wave, a Harvard spinout, is using synthetic chemistry to develop a pipeline of nucleic acid therapeutics – developing stereopure treatments for Huntington’s disease and Duchenne muscular dystrophy that are expected to enter clinical development in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
[Image courtesy of Flickr user Simon Cunningham]
