Biotech Values

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Portola sets IPO stock at $13 to $16
May 7, 2013, 12:24pm PDT
Ron Leuty
Reporter-San Francisco Business Times

Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s initial public offering — one of the largest biotech IPOs this year — values its stock at $13 to $16 per share.

The South San Francisco-based drug developer, which disclosed its IPO last month, said Tuesday that it will sell 6.9 million shares under the NASDAQ stock symbol "PTLA." Assuming a mid-range price of $14.50, Portola said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it hopes to net as much as $103.2 million.

In all, the company will have more than 32.3 million shares outstanding after the offering.

Portola had long been rumored as an IPO candidate but waited out the biotech industry's Wall Street doldrums before making its move. Although profitable the past two years because of a string of Big Pharma partnerships, it has an accumulated deficit since its September 2013 incorporation of $220.5 million.

Portola, which had cash, equivalents and investments of $124.6 million as of March 31, is in a Phase III clinical trial with the blood thinner betrixaban and in Phase II with an antidote for patients who are given FactorXa inhibitors like betrixaban. The antidote already is part of two big partnerships — one with Bayer HealthCare and Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit and another with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE; PFE).

The company, led by CEO Bill Lis, also has a Phase I drug, PRT-2607, aimed at allergic asthma.