When a life sciences company taps the public markets with a stock offering deep into the nine-figure range these days, it’s a safe bet that the capital is for manufacturing.
The Hamburg, Germany-based company has been trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 1999 under the stock symbol “EVT.” The company’s shares started trading Thursday on the Nasdaq under the stock symbol “EVO.” Evotec offered 20 million American depositary shares for $21.75 each.
In its prospectus, Evotec said the growing understanding of the molecular and genetic underpinnings of diseases is driving the need for advanced technologies that can interpret and translate the vast amount of data that are generated.
Evotec provides its technology and services in exchange for milestone payments as programs progress, as well as potential royalties from sales of commercialized products.
According to the filing, Evotec has had a hand in 11 disclosed pipeline programs now in clinical testing and more than 100 programs in discovery or preclinical development.
In the first half of this year, Evotec reported €271.3 million in revenue, a 17.5% increase compared to the same period last year.
In 2019, Evotec acquired Just Biotherapeutics, a Seattle company that applies AI and machine learning capabilities to the discovery and development of biologic drug candidates.
About $35 million is earmarked for the company’s precision medicine platform, including the expansion of its induced pluripotent stem cell technology platform, broadening the access to patient derived samples and disease relevant data, along with expanding the ability to analyze those data.
Though Evotec has been a partner to drug companies, the firm does have its own pipeline of unpartnered drugs.
The company attributed much of that increase to gains from its investment in artificial intelligence biotech Exscientia, an Evotec partner that completed its IPO last month.
The Copenhagen, Denmark-based company priced its offering of 7.15 million shares at $14 apiece, which was the low end of its projected price range.
The company calls its technology platform “T-win.” IO’s drugs are intended to activate naturally occurring T cells to target mechanisms that suppress immune responses.
The company now plans to advance IO102-IO103 into a pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial that will evaluate the therapy in combination with the Merck cancer drug pembrolizumab .
In addition to evaluating the therapy as a first-line treatment, the company also plans to test it before surgery, as a neoadjuvant, which is a first step to try to shrink tumors before surgery.
An additional $84.1 million was released to the company last month under an investment agreement that the company entered into earlier this year.