Zealand taps US market

In the beginning of August, Denmark-based Zealand Pharma A/S has commenced the IPO at Nasdaq to raise US$75m by offering more than 3.9 million shares at a price of US$19.3. The sum is considerably lower than expected. When the IPO plans became public in early July, Zealand said it wanted to raise US$86m (€75m). The company is currently listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen. Zealand has a portfolio of medicines and product candidates under license collaborations with Sanofi, Boehringer Ingelheim and a pipeline of internal product candidates focusing on gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases. Last year, Zealand out-licensed its first invented medicine – lixisenatide – to Sanofi. Now hopes are high for two other drug candidates: glepaglutide and dasiglucagon. Both could soon enter the market. The biggest part of the money, approximately US$45m, will be used to fund clinical trials and the registration of glepaglutide. This drug candidate against short bowel syndrome recently met its primary endpoint of a phase II study — reducing faecal wet weight output A phase III trial is expected to start next year. Another US$25m are reserved to fund clinical trials for the insulin shock drug dasiglucagon, which is the more advanced of the two drug candidates. It is a stable glucagon analogue that Zealand has recently brought into a phase III study as a rescue therapy for severe hypoglycaemia.