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FinanciAL markets
European Biotechnology | Winter Edition | Vol. 17 | 2018
Two surrenders to the adverse market Austria The race was on this fall: Marinomed Biotech AG and Themis Bioscience NV were head-
A bell rings the trading day on and off again. But you still have to wait for trading in the shares of Marinomed AG on the Vienna Stock Exchange.
While formulation expert Marinomed had staged its IPO carefully in regional and in ternational media, fellow Austrian vac cine and cancer immunotherapy specialist Themis took the fast lane – in November, it announced the terms of its initial public offering (IPO) and listing on Euronext Am sterdam (Netherlands), beating Marino med by a couple days. Themis planned to offer up to a total of 3,600,000 ordinary shares within a price range of €9.70–€11.60 per share totaling €55.3m in the best case scenario, includ ing a fully exercised 15% overallotment option. The expected market capitalisa tion would have been between €120.4m and €157.5m. The IPO was announced as a public offering to retail investors in the Netherlands and private placements to institutional and eligible investors in other countries. Existing shareholders Global Health Investment Fund I, Wel lington Partners, aws Gründerfonds
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Beteiligungs GmbH & Co KG, FPCI Ven tech Capital III, and Evotec CEO Wern er Lanthaler had pledged to subscribe for shares for an aggregate amount of €8.6m. After postponing its IPO, citing adverse market conditions, Themis said that it now will investigate other strategic options, including financings, for the de velopment of its programmes.
Dry spell continues Marinomed also announced its plans for entering the public market at the stock exchange in Vienna in November. It would have been the first IPO there for more than a year. The company intended to float around 43% of the family busi ness by issuing 400,000 shares. With a price range of €75–€90, Marinomed wanted to net around €30m–€36m. The IPO comprised a public offering to retail and institutional investors in Austria, and
a private placement outside Austria to selected institutional investors. The run-up to their planned IPOs was picture-perfect. Themis’ news flow, for instance, included a PRIority MEdicines (PRIME) designation by the European Medicines Agency for its marketing au thorization application for the Chikungun ya fever vaccine MV-CHIK. Following the successful completion of a Phase II study this year, work is currently underway on the design of the pivotal Phase III study for the prophylactic vaccine. A big fraction of the money of the proposed offering – about €30m – would have been spent to carry out that study, including production of the measles-virus-based vaccine. To widen the scope beyond infectious diseases, Themis also had ventured into oncology in October by securing a world wide exclusive license for the development, production, and marketing of (again mea sles-virus-based) oncolytic virotherapies – but as it turned out, to no avail. After string of successful IPOs through late summer, the IPO window seems to be closing. Besides Themis and Marinomed, Danish pharma company Abacus Medicine (on the Frankfurt stock exchange), Euronextlisted French biotech Nicox, and US-pain specialist Centrexion Therapeutics (both on Nasdaq New York), have also pulled out of their planned listings, pointing to the cur rent volatility of the financial markets. On the other hand, British gene therapy com pany Orchard Therapeutics managed to go public on Nasdaq in early November, rak ing in US$225.5m. Just a small bump or turning tides? The verdict about investor in L terest in biotech is still out. m.laqua@biocom.eu
Picture: Wiener Börse
to-head on their way from a private to a public company. So far, there’s no winner – both had to give up their plans of going public in the final stretch, when investor sentiment turned wary.
06.12.2018 14:18:24 Uhr