Wave Life Sciences Prices $100 Million Public Offering of Ordinary Shares

Rare Daily Staff

Wave Life Sciences, a clinical-stage RNA medicines company, priced an underwritten public offering of 20 million ordinary shares at a price to the public of $5.00 per share.

Gross proceeds to Wave Life Sciences from the offering are expected to be approximately $100 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses. In addition, Wave Life Sciences has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 3 million of its ordinary shares on the same terms and conditions.

Wave Life Sciences targets a range of genetically defined diseases using its PRISM discovery and drug development platform, the only oligonucleotide platform offering three RNA-targeting modalities (editing, splicing, and silencing, including siRNA and antisense). These modalities incorporate novel chemistry, including PN backbone chemistry and control of stereochemistry, to optimize the pharmacological properties of therapeutic oligonucleotides.

The company’s lead therapeutic, WVE-006, is an RNA editing program targeting alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), which is being developed through a four-year research collaboration with GSK that the company entered in December 2022.

AATD is an inherited genetic disorder that is commonly caused by a G-to-A point mutation (“Z allele”) in the SERPINA1 gene. This mutation leads to lung disease due to lack of wild-type alpha-1 antitrypsin (M-AAT) function in lungs, and it leads to liver disease due to aggregation of misfolded Z-AAT protein in hepatocytes. There are approximately 200,000 patients in the United States and Europe who have Z mutations on both alleles, known as the PiZZ genotype. Augmentation therapy via delivery of AAT protein is the only treatment option for AATD lung disease and requires weekly intravenous infusions. There are no treatments for AATD liver disease, other than liver transplantation.

WVE-006 is a PN chemistry-modified GalNAc-conjugated investigational development candidate for the treatment of AATD and designed to correct the mutant SERPINA1 Z allele transcript to address both liver and lung manifestations of disease. WVE-006 is a potential first-in-class RNA editing candidate (AIMer) and the most advanced program currently in development using an oligonucleotide to harness an endogenous enzyme for editing, according to the company.