French biotech Abivax S.A. (ABVX) priced its NASDAQ uplisting – a U.S. public offering of 18.7 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) – at $11.60 – the low end of its range – to raise $216.91 million on Thursday night (Oct. 19, 2023). The price range was $11.60 to $13.00 for the ADS.
Abivax S.A.’s ADS closed today at $8.30 – down $3.30 or 28.45 percent from their IPO price – in their first day of NASDAQ trading. Volume was about 2.99 million shares.
The ADS opened flat at $11.60 at 10:16 a.m. EDT today ( Friday, Oct. 20, 2023) on volume of more than 570,000 shares, according to NASDAQ. The ADS slid to trade at $9.00 – down $2.60 or off 22.41 percent from its U.S. public offering price – at about 11:31 a.m. EDT today on volume of about 1.59 million shares.
Abivax S.A. priced another 1.63 million ordinary shares in a concurrent European private placement on Thursday night (Oct. 19, 2023) at 10.98 euros per ordinary share – again at the low end of the range – as part of its global offering, which included the ADS sold in the United States. The price range was 10.98 euros to 12.30 euros for the ordinary shares sold in the European private placement. For reference: Abivax ordinary shares (ABVX) closed Thursday, Oct. 19, at 11.78 euros – down 0.51 percent on Euronext Paris.
The French biotech’s global offering consisted of 20.33 million new ordinary shares, including the 18.7 million ADS. Abivax raised about $235.8 million in the global offering. The deal was priced in sync with the terms in its revised prospectus, filed late Wednesday (Oct. 18, 2023).
Morgan Stanley and Leerink were the joint book-runners of the Abivax offering.
Money to Develop an Ulcerative Colitis Drug
About US$180 million – most of the global offering’s proceeds – will be used to fund the Phase III clinical trials and further development of Abivax S.A.’s lead drug candidate, obefazimod, to treat adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, according to the prospectus.
About US$15.8 million will be used to fund the development of obefazimod to treat Crohn’s disease.
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are the two most common forms of inflammatory bowel diseases (“IBD”), which are chronic conditions involving inflammation of the gastrointestinal (“GI”) tract. In 2022, IBD affected about 1.5 million patients In the United States alone and another 1.4 million patients in the EU4 countries (France, Germany, Italy and Spain), the United Kingdom and Japan, according to the prospectus.
“We believe our lead drug candidate, obefazimod, is differentiated from competing approaches for the treatment of IBD via its novel mechanism of action,” Abivax says in the prospectus. “Obefazimod was demonstrated to specifically enhance the expression of a single micro-RNA, miR-124, which plays a critical role in the regulation of the inflammatory response.”
The rest of the global offering’s proceeds will be used for working capital and to pay maturities of certain debt, the prospectus says.
Backed by Truffle Capital
Abivax went public in France in late June 2015, raising 57.5 million euros (US$65 million) in its Euronext Paris IPO, according to Bloomberg. The IPO gave the French biotech startup enough funding for drug development for the next two years, CEO Hartmut Ehrlich, M.D., told Bloomberg. (Dr. Ehrlich retired as CEO this spring. Marc de Garidel succeeded him as CEO and chairman of the board on May 5, 2023, the prospectus says.)
Founded in 2013 in Paris, Abivax was created as a biotech startup with backing from Truffle Capital, a European independent venture capital fund. Truffle Capital specializes in investing in life sciences, FinTech (financial technology) and InsurTech (insurance technology) companies.
Principal shareholders include Truffle Capital, with a pre-IPO stake of 10.99 percent and a post-IPO stake of 7.44 percent, and Sofinnova Crossover, with a pre-IPO stake of 9.55 percent and a post-IPO stake of 6.46 percent, according to the prospectus.
The rest of the global offering’s proceeds will be used for working capital and to pay maturities of certain debt, the prospectus says.
Abivax said its cash on hand was about $121.1 million (converted from euros) as of June 30, 2023.
For the 12 months that ended June 30, 2023, Abivax had a net loss of about US$96.31 million on revenue of about $4.58 million.
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