PureTech sells down Karuna stake as Vor closes IPO

Clinical-stage biotherapeutics commercialisation company PureTech Health announced on Wednesday that its founded entity Vor Biopharma has closed its initial public offering at a price of $18 per share.

At the same time, the company announced that it sold one million shares of founded entity Karuna Therapeutics through a block trade executed by Morgan Stanley, for cash of around $118m.

The FTSE 250 firm said that the Vor IPO consisted of 9,828,017 common shares, and an additional 1,474,202 shares sold under the full option exercised by the underwriters.

“The aggregate gross proceeds to Vor from the offering, before deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by Vor, were approximately $203.4m,” the board said in its statement.

The shares began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market on 5 February under the ticker symbol ‘VOR’.

Following the closing, PureTech said it held 3,207,200 shares of Vor common stock.

Looking at the Karuna selldown, PureTech said it intended to use the proceeds to further expand and advance its clinical-stage wholly-owned pipeline.

“PureTech intends to update financial guidance in connection with the issuance of its 2020 annual report and accounts later this year,” the board said.

At 0917 GMT, shares in PureTech Health were down 0.66% at 375p.