Drug Developers Slide in Trading Debut
February 11 2016 - 1:10PM
Dow Jones News
Shares of drug developers Proteostasis Therapeutics Inc. and
AveXis Inc. fell sharply on their first day of trading,
highlighting the difficulty initial public offerings have faced
this year.
Proteostasis and AveXis are only the third and fourth IPOs since
Dec. 17. There were no U.S. IPOs in January, the first monthlong
drought since September 2011, as volatile trading rocked global
markets. All four offerings have now broken their IPO prices.
At Cambridge, Mass.-based Proteostasis, shares declined 31% to
$5.50. In the offering, 6.25 million shares priced at $8 a share.
The company had previously indicated it intended to sell 3.85
million shares at $12 to $14 each.
Meanwhile, AveXis, which is focused on developing treatments for
patients with neurological genetic diseases, declined 15% to $17 a
share, after its offering of 4.75 million shares priced at $20
each, the middle of its expected range.
Proteostasis, which is trading under the symbol PTI, has five
drugs in its pipeline. Its lead product candidate, PTI-428, is in
early-stage development; the company hasn't yet won regulatory
approval for any of its treatments. Proteostasis said it would use
IPO proceeds to advance PTI-428 as a treatment for cystic fibrosis
into early and midstage clinical trials.
AveXis, which is trading on Nasdaq under the symbol AVXS, has
one product candidate currently in development and said it intends
to use IPO proceeds to fund early-stage trials of the drug
AVXS-101.
The IPO slowdown, in particularly the biotech sector, is getting
special scrutiny from investors because the sector is widely viewed
as the most vulnerable to diminishing access to public funding.
For the year so far, the Dow industrials and S&P 500 have
fallen 11%. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index is off 28%.
Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 11, 2016 12:55 ET (17:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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