Cooley Advises on Nightstar + NuCana IPOs

Palo Alto – October 10, 2017 – Cooley recently advised on the initial public offerings for UK life sciences companies Nightstar Therapeutics and NuCana. These transactions are the latest example of Cooley’s commitment and leadership in the life sciences sector.

Cooley partners Marc Recht, Brian Leaf, Div Gupta, Stephen Rosen and Ed Lukins led the cross-office team advising Nightstar on its $86 million IPO of 6,164,000 American Depositary Shares, which includes the full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares. Nightstar, which now trades on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “NITE,” is a leading clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing and commercializing novel one-time treatments for patients suffering from rare inherited retinal diseases.

Cooley partners Div Gupta, Brent Siler, Nicole Brookshire and Ed Lukins advised the underwriters on NuCana’s $114 million IPO of 7,596,505 American Depositary Shares, which includes the partial exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares. NuCana, which now trades on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “NCNA,” is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on significantly improving treatment outcomes for cancer patients by applying its technology to transform some of the most widely prescribed chemotherapy agents into more effective and safer medicines. Citigroup, Jefferies and Cowen acted as joint book-running managers for the offering, and William Blair acted as co-manager.

In August, Cooley advised Zealand Pharma on its $89 million IPO, which followed on the heels of a series of four life sciences transactions, including the IPOs for Zymeworks, Verona, UroGen and Biohaven.

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