Wilex raises $55.2M for cancer therapies

IPO

Cancer specialist Wilex AG completed its initial public offering on the Frankfurt Exchange, raising Euros 55.2 million. The offer price was fixed at €13.80 per share, the bottom end of the marketed range of €13.80 to €5.80, and rather than providing an exit, two of the venture capital investors increased their stakes.

The new shares were taken up by institutional investors throughout Europe. As part of the placement existing shareholders HDP Beteiligungs GmbH and funds managed by TVM Capital GmbH bought new shares. HDP increased its holding from 2,041,953 to 3,411,953 shares, or around 28 percent of the company, while TVM upped its holding from 853,355 to 925,819 shares, for a stake of around 7.5 percent.

HDP is the investment vehicle of the German software magnate Dietmar Hopp, founder of the enterprise software company SAP, who is exerting increasing financial muscle in Germany’s biotech sector.

“We will use the raised funds to develop Wilex into a profitable biopharmaceutical company with a broad portfolio of new medical products for the treatment of cancer,” said Olaf Wilhelm, CEO. “We have reached some important milestones so far and look forward to reaching several more in the next 18 months. The IPO is an important next step in the development of our company.”

Wilex was founded in 1997 by a team of physicians and oncologists from the Technical University of Munich to develop cancer therapies based on both antibodies and small molecules. There are four products in clinical development currently.