France's Neovacs launches $27M IPO

Despite a number of lackluster biotech IPOs this year, France-based Neovacs says it will attempt to raise €20 million ($27.3 million) on the Alternext Exchange of NYSE Euronext in Paris. The developer will offer 3.9 million new shares from a capital increase or 27.46 percent of its capital, and will price the shares between €5.2 and €6.0 per share.

Neovacs is developing immunotherapeutics for treating cancer and autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Its most advanced product candidate--TNF-alfa Kinoid--is an immunotherapy that targets a number of inflammatory diseases involving TNF alpha. It is moving into Phase II clinical trials in rheumatoid arthritis and is also scheduled to enter Phase II in Crohn's disease in the middle of 2010. Its second up-and-coming product is IFN-alpha Kinoid, which targets interferon alpha in patients with lupus. That drug will soon be entering Phase I/II trials.

"We are now starting clinical phases on two products. Very soon we will have three or four clinical studies under way. This requires strong financial means," Neovacs CEO Guy-Charles Fanneau de La Horie told Reuters.

- read the Reuters article

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