Health and Healthcare

Clearside Biomedical Files for IPO

Chris Lange

Published: March 21, 2016 10:10 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 11:42 am

Clearside Biomedical has filed an amended S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its initial public offering (IPO). No pricing details were given in the offering. The company intends to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol CLSD.

The underwriters for this offering are RBC Capital Markets, Stifel, Needham and Wedbush PacGrow.

This is a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class drug therapies to treat blinding diseases of the eye. The current product candidates focus on diseases affecting the retina and choroid, especially diseases associated with macular edema, and are injected into the suprachoroidal space (SCS), adjacent to the choroid, using the proprietary SCS Microinjector.

With the SCS injection, Clearside’s product candidates are more directly administered to the retina and choroid, as compared to other ocular drug delivery techniques, such as intravitreal injections. The company believes SCS injection may provide a number of benefits, including lower frequency of necessary injection and faster onset of therapeutic effect.

Clearside holds the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize drugs for injection into the SCS. Its most advanced product candidates, CLS-1001 and CLS-1003, are based on commonly used ophthalmic drugs, which it believes will allow it to more efficiently and predictably pursue the regulatory approval of these product candidates under the U.S. Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

It is estimated that there are nearly 5 million people in the United States diagnosed with these target indications and that worldwide annual sales of drugs to treat these indications were roughly $7 billion in 2014.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to further develop its pipeline. The remainder will be used to fund continued research and development of earlier-stage programs, including drug discovery for potential new applications for SCS microinjection technology, and for working capital and other general corporate purposes.