Praxis Precision Medicines Raises $59.1 Million in Public Offering

Rare Daily Staff

Praxis Precision Medicines raised $59.1 million in an underwritten public offering of its common stock.

The genetic medicines focused biotech priced 55.2 million shares at a public offering price per share of $0.95 and, in lieu of shares of common stock, a pre-funded warrant to purchase up to an aggregate of 7 million shares of common stock at a purchase price of $0.9499, which equals the public offering price per share of the common stock less the $0.0001 per share exercise price of each pre-funded warrant.

The gross proceeds from the offering are expected to be approximately $59.1 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by Praxis. Praxis has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 9.3 million additional shares of common stock at the public offering price, less the underwriting discount and commission.

Praxis is a clinical-stage biotech translating genetic insights into the development of therapies for central nervous system disorders, specifically movement disorders and epilepsies, characterized by neuronal excitation-inhibition imbalance. Treatments are developed by two proprietary platforms—one for small molecule drugs and one for antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs).

Lead ASO candidate PRAX-222 is currently in phase 1 development for SCN2A-Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathy (SCN2A-DEE). SCN2A related disorders are a group of epilepsy and neurodevelopmental disorders, each caused by mutations in a gene called SCN2A. Children with SCN2A-DEE often experience seizures that start early in infancy, sometimes even shortly after birth. These seizures may be difficult to control with anti-seizure medications. Children with SCN2A-developmental and epileptic encephalopathy often have delays in reaching developmental milestones and may have several types of seizures during their disease course.

PRAX-222 is designed to selectively decrease SCN2A gene expression, directly targeting the underlying cause of early-seizure-onset SCN2A-DEE to treat seizures and other symptoms in patients with gain-of-function SCN2A mutations. In vitro studies of PRAX-222 have demonstrated reduction in both SCN2A gene expression and protein levels. In vivo, PRAX-222 has demonstrated significant, dose-dependent reduction in seizures, improvement in behavioral and locomotor activity and increased survival in SCN2A mouse models, with potential to be the first disease-modifying treatment. The PRAX-222 program is ongoing under a collaboration with Ionis Pharmaceutics and RogCon.