A biotechnology company developing therapies for pulmonary arterial hypertension and for bleeding in patients taking antiplatelet therapy has made its initial public offering, albeit at a downsized price.
Malvern, Pennsylvania-based PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, which began trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker symbol PHAS, said Wednesday that it had priced its IPO of 9.2 million shares at $5 per share, for a total of about $46 million. In its S-1, filed Sept. 21, the company had proposed a maximum aggregate offering price of $86.25 million, and in the announcement of its IPO roadshow, it had proposed offering 5 million shares at between $12 and $14 each. As of mid-morning Friday, its stock was still trading at around $5 per share.
On Sept. 5, the company announced the closure of a Series D financing round worth $34 million, with participation from new investors Cormorant Asset Management, Rock Springs Capital and Mountain Group Partners. Existing investors include New Enterprise Associates, Hatteras Venture Partners, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Syno Capital and Fletcher Spaght Ventures.
Three days after the S-1 filing, the company announced positive results from the Phase I study of PB2452, a reversal agent for the antiplatelet drug ticagrelor, a drug used in patients with acute coronary syndrome to reduce the rate of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stroke. The trial was a safety study in healthy volunteers and showed PB2452 achieved rapid, complete and sustained reversal of ticagrelor’s activity, with potential for customizable duration of reversal based on dosing regimen.
PhaseBio in-licensed the drug from AstraZeneca last year, announcing a global license agreement with MedImmune, the latter company’s biologics research and development arm, where the drug had been developed under the name MEDI2452. The drug is a fragment antigen-binding antibody fragment that the company said is designed to rapidly reverse ticagrelor’s antiplatelet effects in emergency situations. While approved for reducing the rate of cardiovascular events, ticagrelor’s label also carries a boxed warning stating that, like other antiplatelet agents, it can cause significant and sometimes fatal bleeding.
PhaseBio’s lead product candidate is PB1046, in Phase IIb testing for PAH, with data expected in the first half of 2020.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
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