Genmab launches US$502m IPO

Genmab has priced its shares at US$17.75 per ADS. The company will offer a total of 28,500,000 ADSs, corresponding to 2,850,000 underlying ordinary shares of Genmab. Gross proceeds will amount to US$505.9m or DKK3.37bn. The Danish company will be listed under the symbol GMAB.Genmab is already listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen and plans to change its symbol to GMAB there, as well.

The money will go towards the continued development of its proprietary product candidates, Genmab’s pre-commercial and commercial activities and last but not least towards advancing the company’s earlier stage product candidates.

Just last week, Genmab announced a collaboration with BliNK Biomedical for an exclusive commercial license to certain antibodies targeting CD47, for potential development and commercialisation into novel bispecific therapeutics created via Genmab’s proprietary DuoBody Platform technology. Genmab will pay BliNK Biomedical an upfront fee of US$2.25m as well as around US$200m in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments for each product plus royalties.

Genmab was founded in 1999. The company has two approved antibodies, Darzalex (daratumumab) for the treatment of certain multiple myeloma indications, and Arzerra (ofatumumab) for the treatment of certain chronic lymphocytic leukemia indications. Daratumumab was also admitted to the FDA for subcutaneous formulation. The intravenous formulation of the a human IgG1k monoclonal antibody is already on the market. It made US$774m in net sales in the second quarter of 2019 alone. It is being developed in numerous other indications.