San Diego’s Conatus Pharmaceuticals Sets Price Range for IPO Shares

After disclosing a planned IPO last month, San Diego’s Conatus Pharmaceuticals said in an updated filing yesterday that it plans to offer 5 million shares at a price between $10 and $12 per share. An additional 750,000 shares would be sold if underwriters exercise their option to extend the offering.

Conatus estimates the offering would generate $56.4 million in net proceeds for the company if underwriters offer all 5.75 million shares at $11 per share, the midpoint of the price range. The company says net proceeds would be used to advance the clinical development of emricasan for treating inflammation in chronic liver disease, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Conatus plans to allocate about $22.5 million to fund a midstage study of emricasan, its lead drug candidate, in the United States and Europe (where the study is designated as a late-stage trial) among Hepatitis C patients with rapidly progressing fibrosis of the liver. Among these patients, Conatus says, the progression of fibrosis is particularly rapid, and the company wants to assess whether emricasan can halt this progression, which eventually leads to cirrhosis and ultimately liver failure.

About $4.5 million would be used to fund a planned mid-stage trial in patients with established liver cirrhosis, and another $3.8 million is designated for patients with decompensated liver disease.

Conatus plans to trade on the Nasdaq exchange under ticker symbol CNAT. Venture investors in the company include Aberdare Ventures, which holds a 23.3 percent pre-IPO stake; Advent Venture Capital, 21.1 percent; Gilde Healthcare, 14.3 percent; MPM Capital, 11.2 percent; AgeChem Venture Fund, 7.6 percent; and Roche Finance, 6.7 percent.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.