Morphic Therapeutic Raises $103.5 Million in IPO to Advance Oral Small Molecule Integrin Therapies for Chronic Diseases

Recently, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) learned from foreign media reports that the biopharmaceutical company Morphic Therapeutic announced the closing of its initial public offering (IPO). The transaction began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market on June 27, 2019, under the ticker symbol “MORF.” A total of 6.9 million shares of common stock were issued at $15 per share, including 900,000 additional shares purchased by the underwriters. Through this IPO, Morphic raised approximately $103.5 million (before deducting underwriting discounts, commissions, and other offering expenses), resulting in an IPO valuation of $428.9 million.

Jefferies Group, Cowen and Company, BMO Capital Markets, and Wells Fargo Securities jointly served as the lead underwriters for this offering.

It is reported that Morphic has previously completed three rounds of financing, raising a total of $134.5 million. Specifically, the company closed its $51.5 million Series A financing in June 2016 and its $80 million Series B financing in September 2018.

Morphic, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, is dedicated to the development of a series of oral small-molecule integrin therapies for the treatment of severe chronic diseases, including autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, fibrosis, and cancer.

Morphic has developed a drug discovery platform based on novel integrin R&D technology—the MInT (Morphic Integrin Technology Platform). This platform was co-developed by Morphic and Springer Laboratory, a leader in integrin research. Springer Laboratory provided support in the development of molecules that stabilize specific integrin receptor conformations, establishing a small-molecule chemical library comprising nearly 7,000 uniquely designed integrin inhibitors and activators.

MInT integrates foundational structural biology with integrin-targeting kinetics to screen for candidate drugs that exhibit high potency, high selectivity, and favorable drug-like properties for oral administration.

Integrins (also known as integrin proteins) are transmembrane receptors that mediate the connection between cells and the extracellular environment. In signal transduction, integrins transmit information regarding the chemical composition and mechanical state of the extracellular matrix (ECM) into the cell. Therefore, in addition to their mechanical role across the membrane, integrins are also involved in cell communication, cell cycle regulation, cell morphology, and cell motility.

Jefferies Group, founded in 1962 and headquartered in New York, USA, is a major global securities and investment banking group with offices in 25 cities worldwide. The company provides clients with capital markets and financial advisory services, equity research, and asset management. Jefferies Group primarily focuses on industries such as aerospace and defense, energy, financials, leisure, healthcare, industrials, marine, media, real estate, technology, and telecommunications, and maintains a dedicated private equity team.

Cowen and Company, founded in 1918 and headquartered in New York, USA, is the investment banking arm of Cowen Group. The firm provides comprehensive equity and credit research, brokerage solutions, and capital markets services, crafting personalized and diverse investment products for institutional and private clients. Cowen and Company manages over $1 billion in capital and completed 151 investment banking transactions in the past 12 months.

BMO Capital Markets, established in 1988 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, operates 16 offices across North America with a workforce of approximately 2,300 employees. The firm provides comprehensive financial services and offers a wide range of investment and investment banking products, covering equity and debt underwriting, corporate lending and project finance, mergers and acquisitions advisory, asset securitization, treasury management, market risk management, fixed income and equity research, and corporate acquisitions and transactions.

BMO Capital Markets is a subsidiary of BMO Financial Group. BMO Financial Group is one of the largest diversified financial services companies in North America, with total assets of $529 billion and more than 47,000 employees.

Wells Fargo Securities is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with more than 40 offices across Europe, Asia, and the United States, and employs over 4,000 professionals. The firm offers clients a comprehensive suite of capital markets products and services, including underwriting government bonds and equities, issuing structured loan instruments and municipal bonds, conducting research on interest rate and commodity hedging strategies, and providing advisory services for mergers and acquisitions.

Wells Fargo Securities is the collective name for the subsidiaries under Wells Fargo that provide capital markets and investment banking services, including Wells Fargo Securities, Wells Fargo Institutional Securities, and Wells Fargo Bank.

(Compiled by Tang Lulu)