Orthopedic pharmaceutical company PolyPid, which called off its planned Nasdaq IPO in late 2014, is now reviving its offering, as promised by Chaim Hurvitz, one of its investors, in an interview with "Globes" a few months ago. The company today publishing a revised prospectus for raising $18-22 million, not including the underwriters' commitment, about the same amount it planned on raising last year.
The company's value for the IPO will be $80 million, before money. Aegis Capital will be the chief underwriter, with Chardan Capital and MLV & Co. as secondary underwriters.
PolyPid has developed a delayed-release drug for treatment of compound bone fractures. The product is scheduled to enter clinical trials in 2015, and the company hopes to enter the European market at 2017 the latest. Delayed release implants for preventing infections in bone fractures already exist, but they provide delayed release for only a short time, and must be surgically replaced.
PolyPid's technology facilitates sustained delayed release, and inserting the drug when the fracture is first treated is therefore sufficient. This offering is likely to be the first by an Israeli biomedical company in 2015, and will be a test of whether the market is still open to issues by Israeli companies. PolyPid's offering is relatively small, and its underwriters are identified with small companies.
As of the past several months, Nasdaq has not lost its appetite for large-scale dream offerings by biotechnology companies proposing an exceptional scientific breakthrough, but has been less eager for companies with a slightly more modest presentation that are closer to actually carrying out what they want to do, such as PolyPid.
The principal shareholders in PolyPid are the Xenia incubator in which the company grew (17.7%); Friendly Angels club chairman Adv. Jack Eitan Kyiet, who is also PolyPid's COO; inventor and CTO Noam Emanuel (8%); accountant Yehuda Nir (8%), CEO Amir Weisberg (6.1%), and serial investor Arik Lukach (6.1%). The company has $1.2 million in cash, but is expected to receive a $5 million loan convertible to capital just before its IPO.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 13, 2015
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