Santhera completes Swiss IPO for CHF 88.5M

Santhera Pharmaceuticals, a Swiss specialist in neuromuscular pharmaceuticals, said it raised CHF 88.5 million in its initial public offering and listing on SWX Swiss Exchange. The successsful sale, for 33.5 per cent of the company, gives it a market value of CHF 265.6 million.

Santhera,  said it sold 983,859 registered shares to a mix of institutional investors, including Swiss, British and American funds. The issue price, of CHF 90 a share, was in the middle of the anticipated range. But it added that its lead manager has a so-called greenshoe arrangement - meaning that it has a 30-day option to subscribe for additional shares, in this case up to 147,579, to cover over-allotments.

The ordinary share capital of Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG now consists of 2,951,577 shares corresponding to a market capitalization at the offering price of approximately CHF 265.6 million, not including shares from authorized capital for the over-allotment.

Deutsche Bank acted as Global Co-ordinator and Lead Manager for the offering and Piper Jaffray Inc., WestLB and Zurcher Kantonalbank as members of the syndicate.

The IPO comes less than a month after Santhera raised €10 million with an option to call in a further €5 million, in an oversubscribed private round.

Santhera currently has two compounds in four indications in mid- to late-stage clinical development and has entered three major partnerships since July 2005. The company plans to use the proceeds to further fund the clinical development programs of its lead compound SNT-MC17/idebenone, which is in Phase III for treating  Friedreich’s ataxia, with an  expected market launch of 2008. The compound is also being tested in Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a rare degenerative disorder that affects nerve cells in the retina and optic nerve, leading to rapid loss of central vision and blindness.

Santhera, of Leistal, Switzerland, was formed in September 2004 by the Swiss–German merger of MyoContact AG and Graffinity Pharmaceuticals GmbH. In January 2006 it span Graffinity back out in a management buyout of its drug discovery unit.