Date: May 10, 2013 Author: Lori Valigra Source: bizjournals (
click here to go to the source)
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals Inc., an antibiotic developer based in New Haven, Conn., on Wednesday morning postponed its anticipated IPO only one day after it cut the price about 50 percent, according to information from the Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. citing Renaissance Capital.
The company did not return calls for comment. A source close to the company confirmed that the IPO was postponed because of market conditions. The source said the filing is still active, and that company still is in a quiet period.
Rib-X is not the only local company to postpone an IPO. In February, Cambridge-based Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc. postponed its $166 million IPO, originally scheduled for this week, according to IPO tracker Renaissance Capital, due to poor market conditions. When the company's stock went public on March 29 on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol "MACK," the share price dropped by double digits from its offered price offering price of $7. The stock was trading at $7.63 mid-morning Thursday.
On Tuesday, Rib-X said it expected to offer more shares - 10 million - at the lower expected price of between $6 and $7 each, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company last month had unveiled estimated terms for an IPO of roughly 5.8 shares priced in an estimated range of between $12 and $14 each, according to a Dow Jones report on Tuesday.
In the revised SEC filing, Rib-X said it expected net proceeds to be about $58.3 million after deducting estimated offering expenses and other fees and assuming the IPO shares were $6.50 each. The company aimed to use the net proceeds to fund the estimated cost of its first planned Phase 3 clinical trial of delafloxacin; to fund ongoing research and development activities for our RX-04, RX-05 and RX-06 programs; to pay scheduled principal and interest on its borrowings; and other general corporate purposes. The IPO was filed last November. Rib-X was to have traded on the NASDAQ under ticker symbol RIBX. Deutsche Bank Securities was the lead underwriter.
In February, Rib-X scored a $3 million milestone payment from French biotech giant Sanofi related to a license for the New Haven company's RX04 antibiotics to fight superbugs.
In mid-April it tapped former FDA Deputy Director Matthew Wikler as chief development officer. Rib-X President and CEO Mark Leuchtenberger said at the time that he looked forward to working with Wikler as the company advanced delafloxacin into Phase 3 and further developed other product candidates and programs in its pipeline.
