Idera Pharmaceuticals Sinks on Secondary Offering

By Chris Lange Updated Jan 13, 2:42AM EST · Published Oct 6, 12:45PM EDT

Idera Pharmaceuticals Sinks on Secondary Offering — © Thinkstock

Shares of Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: IDRA) sank on Thursday after the company announced that it intends to have a secondary offering. No pricing details were given, but Idera expects to sell up to $50 million in shares of common stock, with an overallotment option equal up to 15% of the number of common stock sold in the offering. The most recent closing price was $2.25.

The underwriters for the offering are JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, who are also acting as joint bookrunning managers for the offering.

This clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel oligonucleotide therapeutics for oncology and rare diseases. The company uses two distinct proprietary drug discovery technology platforms to design and develop drug candidates: its Toll-like receptor (TLR), targeting technology and its third-generation antisense (3GA) technology.

The company developed these platforms based on scientific expertise and pioneering work with synthetic oligonucleotides as therapeutic agents. Using its TLR targeting technology, Idera designs synthetic oligonucleotide-based drug candidates to modulate the activity of specific TLRs. Using its 3GA technology, the company is developing drug candidates to turn off the messenger RNA (mRNA) associated with disease causing genes.

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Ultimately, Idera believes that its 3GA technology may potentially reduce the immunotoxicity and increase the potency of earlier generation antisense and RNA interference (RNAi) technologies.

In its SEC filing, the company said that it intends to use the net proceeds from this offering, together with its existing cash, cash equivalents and investments ($64.1 million as of June 30, 2016), to advance the development of IMO-2125 in its immuno-oncology program, the development of IMO-8400 in the rare disease program and the development of the 3GA platform, with the remainder going toward working capital and other general corporate purposes.

Shares of Idera were trading down about 10% at $2.35 on Thursday, with a consensus analyst price target of $5.00 and a 52-week trading range of $1.19 to $4.42.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.