Bellerophon Therapeutics (NSDQ:BLPH) priced its initial public offering under range today but offered more shares than planned, for total proceeds of $60 million.
Hampton, N.J.-based Bellerophon had planned to raise up to $69 million by putting up 4 million shares at $14 to $16, but wound up floating 5 million shares at $12 apiece.
The offering includes a 750,000-share over-allotment option for the IPO’s underwriters, Bellerophon said. Leerink Partners and Cowen & Company were the joint bookrunners.
The company spun out of Ikaria in early 2014 and licenses some of its technology from that company. It is essentially a drug/device hybrid and has 2 development programs in play.
Its bioabsorbable cardiac matrix (BCM) is a liquid medical device injected into the coronary artery leading to the damaged area of a heart, and is designed for use after a heart attack. It forms a gel/scaffold in the damaged portion of the heart’s left ventricle and helps support the heart wall, to prevent further damage as well as congestive heart failure, allowing the heart to heal. Once its job is done, the BCM absorbed into and then eliminated from the body.
Bellerophon licenses the technology from BioLineRx, and just completed enrollment in a 303-patient trial conducted at 90 clinical sites in Australia, Europe, Israel and North America. Top line results are due in mid-2015, according to the company. The initial regulatory goal: CE mark registration in the European Union.
Bellerophon’s INOpulse program is based on licensed technology from Ikaria. It centers around a nitric oxide delivery device designed to treat pulmonary hypertension. INOpulse is past Phase 2 clinical trials.
Bellerophon said it has not yet generated revenue and expects it will take several years before it can commercialize a product. As a spinout, the company said it has relied on operating cash supplied by former parent company Ikaria. It lost $52.3 million in 2013 and $36.2 million in 2012, according to the regulatory filing.
The company said it had working capital of nearly $28 million and $43.7 million in cash, equivalents and restricted cash as of Sept. 30, which it said would last at least through March 31, 2015. That appears to make an IPO a crucial next step.
