Wave Life Sciences Files for IPO

The underwriters for the offering are Jefferies and Leerink Partners.

This is a preclinical biopharmaceutical company with an innovative and proprietary synthetic chemistry drug development platform used to design, develop and commercialize a broad pipeline of first-in-class or best-in-class nucleic acid therapeutic candidates. Nucleic acid therapeutics have the potential to address diseases that have been difficult to treat with small molecule drugs or biologics and have emerged as a large and promising class of drugs.

The company is initially developing nucleic acid therapeutics that target genetic defects to either reduce the expression of disease-promoting proteins or transform the production of dysfunctional mutant proteins into the production of functional proteins. The platform is driven by innovative and proprietary stereochemistry technology, enabling Wave Life to rationally design, optimize and manufacture stereopure nucleic acid therapeutics, which it believes possess drug properties that are superior to the stereoisomer mixtures of oligonucleotides currently on the market or in development by others.

This platform can be used to design therapies that utilize any of the major molecular mechanisms employed by nucleic acid therapeutics, including antisense, ribonucleic acid interference exon skipping and others.

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The company intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to fund additional preclinical studies and clinical trials for its pipeline. The remainder of the net proceeds will be used to advance discovery programs, to expand pipeline, for working capital and for other general corporate purposes. Wave Life may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire, license and invest in complementary products, technologies or businesses; however, it currently has no agreements or commitments to do so.