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Dicerna, Celladon price IPOs

January 30, 2014 2:18 AM UTC

RNAi play Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:DRNA) and gene therapy company Celladon Corp. (NASDAQ:CLDN) both raised money in IPOs on Wednesday. Dicerna raised $90 million through the sale of 6 million shares at $15, which values the company at $249.4 million. Dicerna set the terms for the offering on Tuesday. Jefferies; Leerink; Stifel; and Baird are underwriters.

Dicerna is using its Dicer Substrate short interfering RNA (DsiRNA) technology to develop DsiRNA molecules, which are longer than other RNAi molecules and are processed by Dicer, an enzyme involved in the RNAi gene silencing cascade. This half, the company plans to start clinical testing of DCR-M1711, a DsiRNA targeting v-myc myelocytomatosis viral oncogene homolog ( MYC; c-Myc) mRNA. The compound is in development for MYC-related cancers, with an initial focus on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). ...