Orchard Therapeutics Completes $225 Million Initial Public Offering

VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) learned from foreign media that on November 5, 2018, London time, the newly listed biopharmaceutical company Orchard Therapeutics announced the completion of its initial public offering (IPO), raising a total of $225 million. The offering comprised a total of 16,103,572 American Depositary Shares (ADSs), with each ADS representing one ordinary share, priced at $14 per share.

Orchard Therapeutics is a gene therapy startup dedicated to providing transformative gene therapies for patients with severe and life-threatening rare diseases. The company primarily restores patients’ genetic function through ex vivo autologous hematopoietic stem cell gene therapy. Its initial focus areas include life-threatening genetic disorders, such as primary immunodeficiencies, neurometabolic disorders, and hemoglobinopathies.

Image source: Internet

Ex vivo autologous hematopoietic stem cell gene therapy primarily consists of three steps. The first step involves harvesting hematopoietic stem cells from the patient, typically from the bone marrow. Subsequently, the stem cells undergo ex vivo modification: the abnormal gene responsible for the rare disease is identified, and a lentiviral vector carrying the corresponding normal gene is used to transduce the pathogenic stem cells, thereby correcting the genetic defect. Finally, the genetically modified stem cells are infused back into the patient via intravenous injection. The primary advantage of this therapy is that it eliminates the need for third-party donor stem cells, thereby avoiding immune rejection reactions triggered by allogeneic donors and preventing associated complications.

Orchard Therapeutics was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the United States on October 31, local time, with the stock ticker symbol “ORTX.” It is reported that the company completed four rounds of financing totaling approximately $310 million prior to its IPO.

After deducting underwriting commissions and estimated offering expenses, the total net proceeds from Orchard Therapeutics’ initial public offering amounted to $225.5 million. This includes the underwriters’ partial exercise of their option to purchase up to 1,817,857 additional ADSs from Orchard at the initial public offering price, subject to underwriting discounts and commissions.

For this offering, Orchard Therapeutics appointed J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, and Cowen as joint book-running managers, with Wedbush PacGrow serving as co-manager.

Orchard Therapeutics, established in September 2015, is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming the lives of patients with severe and life-threatening rare diseases through innovative gene therapies. The company’s ex vivo autologous gene therapy product, Strimvelis, was the first autologous ex vivo gene therapy approved by the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA-SCID). It utilizes ex vivo gene modification of autologous hematopoietic stem cells to restore normal gene function. Orchard Therapeutics currently maintains offices in London, UK, as well as in San Francisco and Boston, US.