Isis Announces 3-Million Share Public Offering
Privately held Isis Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday joined more than a dozen biotechnology companies that have announced or completed initial public offerings since the first of the year.
Carlsbad-based Isis plans a 3-million share initial public offering that, if successful, would raise as much as $45 million, company officials said.
Isis, founded in March, 1989, is taking advantage of a “window” in the stock market that has prompted nearly a dozen firms to announce or complete public offerings that would raise more than $800 million.
“Obviously, the window is now open,” said Jim McCamant, editor of the San Francisco-based Medical Technology Stockletter. “You’ve got to hope that, for Isis’ sake, it’s still open when they try to get their offering done.
“This market is a good one for new issues, because secondary stocks continue to outperform (major) companies,” McCamant said. “And that’s what new issues are--secondary stocks.”
Isis, which is developing a new class of drugs called anti-sense oligonucleotides, hopes to attack a wide-ranging group of medical conditions, including infectious, inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases as well as cancer.
During the coming year, Isis intends to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for two compounds that will be used to treat herpes and genital warts.
Isis’ proprietary technology makes it “clearly one of the leaders in the anti-sense area,” McCamant said. “By all appearances, they are one of the quality companies” now making public offerings.
Isis, with 60 employees, has attracted considerable interest from foreign drug manufacturers during recent years. In December, Isis signed a multimillion dollar cooperative agreement with Eisai Co. Ltd. of Tokyo to develop human diagnostic and therapeutic products. The companies declined to discuss the agreement’s dollar value.
Last October, Isis announced that Ciba-Geigy, a Swiss pharmaceuticals giant, had agreed to invest more than $30 million in a joint venture with the company to develop drugs to combat certain inflammatory diseases and cancers.
And, in November, Isis struck a deal with Rhone-Poulenc of France to develop drugs to treat unspecified cancers.
Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. and Lehman Brothers will manage the offering. Proceeds will be used for research and development, including preclinical and clinical testing, production of compounds, facilities expansion and other general corporate purposes.
