Bluebird Bio Gears Up for $350 Million Offering

Bluebird Bio Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE) shares have made a steady gain over the course of the year, and now the firm is looking to cash in on this growth. The company announced that it would conduct a secondary offering after all this success in the market.

Bluebird Bio values the offering up to $350 million, with an overallotment option for an additional 52.5 million shares. It is worth pointing out that Bluebird did not actually give out an official number of shares that were being offered. All the shares are being offered by Bluebird.

The underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Cowen.

Excluding Tuesday’s move, the stock has outperformed the broad markets and is actually up 80% year to date. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up 172.5%.

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Bluebird intends to use the net proceeds of this offering as follows:

• To fund the potential exercise of our option to co-develop and co-promote our bb2121 product candidate, which has been exclusively licensed by Celgene Corporation, in the United States following the completion of the ongoing Phase I clinical study;
• To fund our planned Phase I clinical study of our bb21217 product candidate in multiple myeloma;
• To fund HGB-212, our planned Phase III clinical study of our LentiGlobin product candidate in patients with TDT who have a b0/b0 genotype;
• To further build our commercial infrastructure in support of potential commercial launch of LentiGlobin in TDT in the United States and Europe pending regulatory approvals in the United States and Europe;
• To fund the continued research and development of additional CAR T and TCR product candidates in oncology; and
• To further expand our manufacturing platform and capabilities to support our ongoing and anticipated product development efforts, and in anticipation of a potential commercial launch.
• We expect to use any remaining net proceeds from this offering for general and administrative expenses.

Shares of Bluebird Bio were trading down about 3% at $107.70 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $106.31 and a 52-week range of $37.05 to $123.75.

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