Vaccine maker HilleVax, Inc. (HLVX proposed) hopped on to the IPO Express early today for its last run in April 2022. This is the first sizable IPO from big banks since Excelerate Energy (EE) made its successful debut on April 13th. J.P Morgan, SVB Leerink, Stifel and Guggenheim Securities are the joint book-runners for the HilleVax IPO. HilleVax gives Wall Street some excitement in a slow month.
HilleVax filed terms today (Monday, April 25, 2022) to offer 10.294 million shares at $16 to $18 each. The IPO will raise $175 million, if priced at the $17 mid-point. HilleVax is expected to price its IPO on Thursday night, April 28th, to start trading Friday, April 29th, on the NASDAQ.
Boston-based HilleVax is developing and commercializing novel vaccines. Its first program, HIL-214, is a VLP (virus-like particle) vaccine candidate to prevent moderate to severe acute gastroenteritis (AGE) caused by norovirus infection. The clinical biopharmaceutical company says that it’s estimated that norovirus causes nearly 700 million cases of illness and more than 200,000 deaths worldwide per year.
HilleVax was founded on the legacies of leading vaccine developers, Dr. Tadataka “Tachi” Yamada, the former chief medical and scientific offer of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., and Dr. Maurice Hilleman, who is considered by many to be the father of modern vaccines. He developed many of the vaccines routinely recommended for children today, including those for the flu, chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella, as well as the vaccines for hepatitis A and B, pneumococcus, meningococcus and other diseases.