Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (ITCI) announced a public offering of 4.25 million shares of its common stock on Wednesday morning, prescient in light of the stock’s 35% gain since a brief mention by Forbes at the beginning of February. The offering grants the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an additional 15% of the offered shares of common stock. ITCI will gross over $105 million in cash if the deal goes through at $25/share (not including the greenshoe), and is being jointly managed by Leerink Partners; Cowen and Company; and RBC Capital Markets.
The announcement is particularly interesting as it comes three weeks after Forbes named the company among a handful of stocks to watch in neuroscience: a mere cautionary mention paved the way for a sizable financing. The deal exemplifies the saying among biotech investors, “raise when you can.” After an early-2014 IPO, ITCI was a relatively under-followed name in biotech, lost in the shuffle of dozens of new public companies in the last year.
Intra-Cellular is focused on the development of drugs for neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. Its lead drug candidate, ITI-007, began phase 3 clinical trials this year as a treatment for schizophrenia, an indication littered with historic drug failures despite a myriad of new mechanisms. The pivotal trial could read out as early as the fourth quarter of this year, according to the company.
