Shares of German biotechnology company CureVac nearly third in their Nasdaq debut Friday, marking the first stock market debut of a company developing a potential vaccine to combat the new coronavirus.
The stock opened at $ 44 per share, up from the initial public offering price of $ 16 per share.
CureVac, backed by Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates, sold 13.33 million shares at $ 16 a share, the upper end of its stated price range between $ 14 and $ 16 per share.
The company, which began an early-stage coronavirus trial in June with healthy volunteers with results expected in the last quarter of 2020, raised $ 213.3 million in the IPO.
Proceeds from the IPO would be used to fund its COVID-19 vaccine program and production capabilities, CureVac said in a regulatory submission.
The company is working to expand its capacity with a new manufacturing facility in Germany that will be able to produce billions of vaccine doses.
CureVac is in talks with major drugmakers about a partnership to help market and distribute its potential vaccine, the chief executive of the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Friday.
The company is investigating how messenger RNA can be used to fight cancer, rabies and other diseases, including the coronavirus.
In June, the German government took a 23 percent stake in CureVac for about $ 343 million. In July, GlaxoSmithKline and the Qatar Investment Authority also acquired a stake in the company.
Tureingen-based CureVac secured a 75 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank last month.
SAP SE co-founder Dietmar Hopp has a controlling stake in CureVac and is expected to hold a little less than 50 percent after the listing, according to a company filing.
Bank of America, Jefferies, and Credit Suisse are lead underwriters for the IPO.
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