Zai Lab has filed an amended F-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its initial public offering (IPO). The company intends to price its 8 million American depositary shares (ADSs) in the range of $16 to $18, with an overallotment option for an additional 1.2 million ADSs. At the maximum price, the entire offering is valued up to $165.6 million. The company intends to list its ADSs on the Nasdaq under the symbol ZLAB.

The underwriters for the offering are JPMorgan, Citigroup and Leerink Partners.

This is an innovative biopharmaceutical company based in Shanghai focusing on discovering or licensing, developing and commercializing proprietary therapeutics that address areas of large unmet medical need in the China market, including in the areas of oncology, autoimmune and infectious diseases.

Management believes there exists a significant opportunity to build an organization that not only addresses such unmet needs but leverages underutilized resources in China to foster innovation. As part of that effort, the firm has assembled a management team with global experience and an extensive track record in navigating the regulatory process to develop and commercialize innovative drugs in China.

In the filing, the firm said:

Since our founding in 2014, we have assembled an innovative pipeline consisting of six drug candidates through partnerships with global biopharmaceutical companies. These include three late-stage assets targeting fast growing segments of China’s pharmaceutical market and three assets addressing global unmet medical needs. We believe that our management’s extensive global drug development expertise, combined with our demonstrated understanding of the pharmaceutical industry, clinical resources and regulatory system in China, has provided us, and will continue to provide us, opportunities to partner with global companies aiming to bring innovative products to market in China efficiently. Our lead drug candidate is niraparib, a PARP inhibitor licensed from Tesaro. We intend to develop niraparib for Chinese patients across multiple tumor types and anticipate beginning two Phase III studies of niraparib in patients with ovarian cancer, one in the second half of 2017 and the other in the first half of 2018. In addition, we intend to pursue niraparib in other indications.

Zai Lab intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to further develop its pipeline, with the remainder going toward working capital and general corporate purposes.

Get Our Free Investment Newsletter

I have read, and agree to the Terms of Use

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.