Syncona puts $15m into Autolus US offering

Healthcare investment company Syncona announced on Thursday that its portfolio company, Autolus Therapeutics, had confirmed the pricing of its underwritten public offering in the United States.

The FTSE 250 company said the offering consisted of 7.25 million American depositary shares (ADS) representing 7.25 million ordinary shares, at a public offering price of $11.00 (£8.37) per ADS, for total gross proceeds of around $80m.

It said all ADSs sold in the offering were offered by Autolus, which also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.09 million ADSs at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.

Syncona said it had agreed to invest $15m in the offering, following which it retained a stake of 28.3% in Autolus, valued at £151.4m at the close of trading on 22 January.

“Autolus has delivered promising data in its AUTO1 adult ALL programme and we are delighted to continue to back the business as it looks to commence its pivotal programme in this indication in the first half of 2020 and deliver on its ambition to take product to market,” said chief executive officer Martin Murphy.

“We believe the business is well positioned to continue to develop its exciting pipeline of next generation T cell therapies and look forward to seeing further data from the AUTO3 programme in DLBCL in the second half of 2020, which will enable Autolus to make its decision on further clinical development, including phase 2 initiation.”