Moderna to list on Wall Street with US$ 500 million IPO — biotech’s biggest yet

By PharmaCompass

2018-11-15

Impressions: 158 Article

Last week, Moderna Therapeutics, a developer of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics, filed papers for its long-awaited IPO. This is one of the biggest gambles on Wall Street, and biotech’s biggest IPO that would raise US$ 500 million.

Once it completes the offering, Moderna will trade on NASDAQ under the symbol ‘MRNA’.

In February, Moderna had raised US$ 500 million through a series G funding. And then in May 2018, it had grabbed another US$ 125 million in preferred equity as it expanded a cancer vaccine partnership with Merck & Co.

So far, Moderna has secured US$ 1.8 billion in venture financing, and another US$ 800 million or so through partnerships with Merck, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca and Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Earlier this year, its valuation had been estimated at over US$ 7 billion.

In its SEC filing, Moderna said the proceeds from the IPO will go toward “drug discovery and clinical development, further expansion of our manufacturing platform and capabilities and infrastructure to support our pipeline.”

It will also use the funds to support further development of its mRNA technology platform and the creation of new modalities. So far, the company has developed six “modalities”— prophylactic vaccines, cancer vaccines, intratumoral immuno-oncology, localized regenerative therapeutics, systemic secreted therapeutics and systemic intracellular therapeutics.

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