Lycia Therapeutics reportedly allocates zero shares to half of investors

Lycia Therapeutics Inc. priced its initial public offering at $18 per share, the top of its marketed range, and allocated no shares to half of the investors who placed orders, Bloomberg reported Friday.

The autoimmune and inflammatory disease-focused drug developer sold 17.6 million shares, raising $318 million. The company originally planned to offer 14.7 million shares in a range of $16 to $18 per share. The final deal size was 27% larger than initially planned.

The offering attracted demand for several times the number of available shares, with support from long-only and healthcare-dedicated investors, the report said.

The top 25 investors in the offering received 95% of the shares. At the pricing, Lycia has a fully diluted market capitalization of $1.1 billion.

Shares are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market later today under the ticker symbol LYCA.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc., Toronto-Dominion Bank, Evercore Inc., and Guggenheim Securities are among the banks working on the offering.

Lycia is a Phase 1 biotechnology company developing protein degraders for food allergy and Graves’ disease.