London, 17 July 2018, Consilium Strategic Communications, a global leader in strategic healthcare communications, today announces that it advised Polyphor Ltd. (“Polyphor”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative antibiotics and other specialty pharma products for severe or life-threatening diseases, on its successful CHF 155 million (c. €130 million) Initial Public Offering (“IPO”) on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
Polyphor commenced trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the ticker “POLN” with a market capitalisation of CHF 442 million (c. €372 million). Polyphor’s IPO was the largest biotech IPO in Switzerland in more than 10 years and one of the top three in Europe in the past three years in terms of proceeds raised by an issuer to finance the development of its pipeline.
Polyphor has discovered and is developing the OMPTA (Outer Membrane Protein Targeting Antibiotics). The OMPTA are potentially the first new class of antibiotics against Gram-negative bacteria to have reached phase III stage in the last 50 years. Polyphor’s lead product, murepavadin, (POL7080) is in Phase III development against Pseudomonas aeruginosa – recognized as a critical priority 1 pathogen by WHO. Polyphor is also developing an immuno-oncology candidate, balixafortide (POL6326), which has achieved clinical proof of concept in a Phase Ib/proof of concept study in combination with eribulin in patients with advanced breast cancer, and a pipeline of further preclinical antibiotics based on its OMPTA platform.
The funds raised from the IPO will primarily be used to fund the continued development of Polyphor’s lead product candidate murepavadin towards regulatory approval and further progress the development of balixafortide.
UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Bookrunners for the IPO and Cantonal Bank of Zurich and Cantor Fitzgerald acted as Co-Lead Managers. Octavian acted as Selling Agent. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and VISCHER AG were acting as legal advisors to Polyphor. Linklaters LLP and Bär & Karrer Ltd. represented the Managers.
“We were delighted to advise on international strategic communications throughout this successful transaction. Polyphor’s IPO marks another one of the 60+ international IPOs that Consilium’s team have advised on and we were proud to be part of this advisory team.”
Chris Gardner
Partner at Consilium Strategic Communications
