Wave Life Sciences Raises $100 Million to Advance Rare Disease Pipeline

Rare Daily Staff

Wave Life Sciences raised $100 million in a public offering of 8.3 million shares at $12.00 per share to support advancement of its experimental pipeline of stereopure oligonucleotide therapeutics to treat severe neurodegenerative diseases.

In addition, Wave granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,250,000 of its ordinary shares on the same terms and conditions. The offering is expected to close on or about September 25, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

Wave’s lead pipeline candidate is a stereopure oligonucleotide in phase 1/2 testing targeting Huntington’s disease, a rare genetic disease in which the brain’s nerve cells break down over time. It is being developed in partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical in which the Japanese drugmaker has the option to co-develop and co-commercialize experimental therapies in Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, and spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 under a global 50:50 profit split.

Wave Life Science says its stereopure oligonucleotides can increase the potency, efficacy, and safety of standard antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) by taking away the randomness inherent in ASO molecules that have identical sequences but different 3D conformations.

The company also has several preclinical programs, including its ADAR editing therapies. Wave priced the offering after an upgrade of its stock by Joon Lee of Truist Securities sent its share price up 5.3 percent. The upgrade was based on the company’s presentation of new preclinical data for its ADAR editing technology. ADARs are enzymes that bind to mRNA and may be a promising way of modifying it to ultimately restore or alter protein function to treat multiple diseases.