Quark Pharmaceuticals Inc. is due to hold the pricing stage of its Nasdaq IPO today. The company will offer five million shares at $12-14 per share in an effort to raise $60-70 million at a company value of $219-256 million.
The underwriters are JP Morgan, Banc of America Securities LLC, CIBC World Markets, and CE Unterberg Towbin. Quark has granted the underwriters a green shoe option to buy 750,000 shares, which will increase the amount of the IPO by up to $9 million. If the IPO goes ahead as planned, the company will be traded under the symbol “QURK”.
Quark has developed technology that enables it to discover genes responsible for various diseases, and to use this knowledge to develop drugs that intervene in the expression of these genes. The technology is derived from Silencing RNA (SiRNA), proteins that selectively silence particular genes. The company’s modified siRNA in development for neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was recently licensed to Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE; LSE:PFZ).
SiRNA has been very popular among Nasdaq investors ever since Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK) acquired a SiRNA company for more than $1 billion a few months ago. Quark is also backed by Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison, an early investor in the company.
Quark does not yet have a product on the market, and under worst case scenarios, it never will. The company’s molecules, including the one licensed to Pfizer, are still only in the preliminary human trial stages, and have not yet demonstrated effectiveness in large-scale trials. Nevertheless, the company seems to be one of the strongest Israeli candidates that has headed to Nasdaq in recent years.
Quark’s IPO is being priced for less than the company might have made if it were sold to a large pharmaceutical company. However, Quark founder and CEO Dr. Daniel Zur has said in the past that the influence of investor Ellison was enough to ensure that the company would remain Israeli and independent. It will be interesting to see how going public on Nasdaq will affect the company’s Zionism.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on June 27, 2007
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