Allergy drug development firm Circassia floats on the London Stock Exchange in the biggest UK biotech initial public offering in years.
Circassia, a spin-out of Imperial College London (ICL), has held its initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange in the biggest UK biotech floatation in years.
The allergy drug development firm is raising £200m ($332m) with the IPO, and was priced at the top of its range at 310 pence per share, valuing the company at around £581m ($965m). According to life sciences publication EP Vantage, that makes Circassia’s IPO the largest UK biotech to float since 1995.
The company, which is 20% owned by ICL’s tech transfer unit Imperial Innovations, is developing a range of allergy therapies, such as cat allergies and hay fever. The IPO has seen Innovations’ investment of £25.5m deliver over three times the value in return, now worth £82m. The company’s cat allergy is currently in Phase III trials and, should it pass Food and Drug Administration approval in the US, will be on its way to treating the 24 million people in the US who are allergic to cats.
Steven Harris, Circassia CEO, said: “We have a platform that can be rolled out to further allergies, and only need to get one product approved in US for all our shareholders to do very well. Being cat allergic can have a huge impact on people’s lives — even sitting on a bus next to someone with cat hairs can make people feel very unwell.”
