Funds to Drive Development of Unique Cell Therapy for Heart Failure
Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium – The biotechnology company, Cardio3 BioSciences SA (Cardio3 BioSciences), a leader in the discovery and development of regenerative, protective and reconstructive therapies for the treatment of cardiac diseases, today announces it has successfully completed its Initial Public Offering.
The IPO was priced at €16.65 per share. Cardio3 BioSciences will issue 1,381,500 new shares equivalent to €23.0m including the partially exercised increase option. Additionally, an overallotment option to subscribe to up to 207,225 additional shares at the IPO price, equivalent to €3.45m, has been granted to Kempen & Co, on behalf of the Joint Bookrunners, for the sole purpose to cover over-allotments, if any. If the over-allotment option is exercised in full, the total amount of the capital increase will amount to €26.45m.
The book was well covered with high quality demand from Belgium, France, UK, Scandinavia, The Netherlands and US.
Cardio3 BioSciences’ shares will be listed on NYSE Euronext Brussels and NYSE Euronext Paris and conditional trading is expected to commence as of 5 July 2013 under the ticker symbol CARD. It is the first biotechnology company to be listed on both exchanges.
Kempen & Co acted as Global Coordinator and Kempen & Co and Invest Securities acted as Joint Bookrunners. Portzamparc acted as Selling Agent. Merodis acted as financial advisor to the company.
Dr Christian Homsy, CEO of Cardio3 BioSciences said: “We expect that the success of our IPO will allow us to complete our European Phase III study for C-Cure®, a unique cell therapy for the treatment of heart failure. Heart failure is a significant burden to patients, families and society in general. We believe C-Cure® has the potential to go beyond symptom relief towards healing heart tissue and could mark a significant step forward in treatment for heart failure patients. Our new funds will put us in a good position to gain approval from the FDA to begin our US study and begin clinical trials with one of our pipeline products for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or ‘heart attack’.
“We welcome our new investors, both institutional and private individuals, and look forward to advancing important new regenerative therapies for heart disease towards the market and generating value for shareholders.”
Cardio3 BioSciences is developing its most advanced therapy, C-Cure®, for the treatment of heart failure, one of the world’s greatest unmet medical needs. C-Cure® is a unique cell therapy aimed at repairing damaged tissue and improving heart function, clinical outcomes and quality of life. It builds on research conducted at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA), Cardio3 BioSciences and Cardiovascular Centre Aalst (Aalst, Belgium).
The supporting science is the result of Mayo Clinic innovation leading to advanced product development, manufacturing scale-up, and clinical trial execution by Cardio3 BioSciences catalyzed by ongoing collaboration facilitated through Mayo Clinic Ventures.
“Historic advances in patient care treatments, like this, come about through close collaborations between medical centers and biotechnology companies. Their combined expertise accelerates the ability to effectively get new treatments to patients,” said Professor Andre Terzic, Director Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine.
Having achieved positive Phase II results, recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) (Bartunek et al. 2013 – see below), the product is currently being tested in Europe in a Phase III trial (CHART-1). CHART-1 is the world’s first phase III trial using pre-programmed cardiac progenitor cells for the treatment of heart failure.
Offering Highlights
- The final IPO price was set at €16.65 per share and applies to both retail and institutional investors.
- The total number of shares that were sold amounts to 1,588,725 shares, including 81,500 shares resulting from the exercise of the increase option and 207,225 over-allotment shares.
- Retail investors have been allocated 9.3% of the total number of allocated shares. Retail investors will be allocated 100% of their requested shares.
- As a result of this IPO, Cardio3 BioSciences has raised €23.0m in gross proceeds. Together with the existing shares, the number of outstanding shares (before the exercise of the over-allotment option) amounts to 6,125,567 representing a market capitalization of approximately €102.0m based on the IPO price.
- The shares have been listed and conditional trading is expected to commence as of 5 July 2013 on NYSE Euronext Brussels and on NYSE Euronext Paris under the symbol CARD. Delivery and payment of the shares is expected to be made on 9 July 2013.
