San Diego’s Evoke Pharma Files IPO to Advance Gastrointestinal Drug

Evoke Pharma, Diabetic Gastroparesis

San Diego’s Evoke Pharma, founded in 2007 to advance a nasal spray used to treat diabetic gastroparesis, plans to raise $23.9 million through an IPO as an “emerging growth company,” according to a recent securities filing.

Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of 2012, companies that qualify as an emerging growth company can take advantage of reduced financial reporting requirements that would otherwise apply to public companies. Evoke would be one of the first life sciences companies in San Diego to test the practicality of the relaxed disclosure rules, and how well investors accept them.

Evoke has kept a low profile—the most recent news release on the company’s website is more than four years old—but in its IPO filing, the company discloses plenty of pluses and minuses for investors to consider .

On the plus side, Evoke was co-founded by Cam Garner, the veteran San Diego life sciences entrepreneur. The two VCs with the biggest stake in the company (with each holding a nearly 31 percent stake) are the experienced life sciences investors Domain Associates and Latterell Venture Partners. The other co-founders are CEO David Gonyer, who was previously an executive at Medgenex and Xcel Pharmaceuticals; CFO Matthew D’Onofrio, a former executive at Victory Pharma and Vertex Pharmaceuticals; and Scott Glenn, the managing partner of Windamere Venture Partners.

Evoke also is running on a lean business model. The company has only two full-time employees, and says it relies on outsourcing for many activities, including development of

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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.