BioCentury
ARTICLE | Financial News

Immune Design, Pfenex price IPOs

July 24, 2014 11:55 PM UTC

Cancer immunotherapy company Immune Design Corp. (NASDAQ:IMDZ) and biosimilar play Pfenex Inc. (NYSE-M:PFNX) priced their IPOs on Thursday. Immune Design raised $60 million through the sale of a bumped-up number of shares at the low end of its proposed range. Immune Design sold 5 million shares at $12, which values the company at $190.5 million. Last week, the company said it planned to sell 4.7 million shares at $12-$14. Jefferies; Leerink Partners; and Wells Fargo are underwriters.

Immune Design has several immunotherapies in Phase I testing for solid tumors or Merkel cell carcinoma, including G100 and CMB305. G100 is a toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) agonist, and CMB305 is a combination of the company's LV305 and G305, which are both also in Phase I testing as single agents. LV305 is a lentiviral vector engineered to deliver antigen-encoding nucleic acids directly to dendritic cells in vivo. G305 is an immunotherapy comprised of recombinant cancer/testis antigen 1B ( CTAG1B; NY-ESO-1) and synthetic glucopyranosyl lipid A (GLA) adjuvant. ...