Avidity Biosciences sells 15.22M shares at $16.50 in private placement

Avidity Biosciences announced that it has agreed to sell 15,224,773 shares of its common stock at a price of $16.50 per share and pre-funded warrants to purchase 9,030,851 shares of its common stock at a price per pre-funded warrant of $16.4990 to a select group of institutional and accredited healthcare specialist investors in an oversubscribed private placement. The pre-funded warrants have an exercise price of $0.001 per share, will be immediately exercisable and will not expire. Avidity anticipates the gross proceeds from the private placement to be approximately $400 million, before deducting any offering-related fees and expenses. The private placement is expected to close on or about March 4, 2024, subject to customary closing conditions. The financing includes participation from new and existing institutional investors, including Adage Capital Partners LP, Boxer Capital, Casdin Capital, LLC, Farallon, Janus Henderson Investors, RA Capital Management, RTW Investments, Wellington Management, as well as multiple other large investment management firms. Leerink Partners, BofA Securities, Cantor and Chardan acted as placement agents for the private placement. Avidity intends to use the net proceeds from the proposed financing to fund research and development of its clinical-stage product candidates, other research programs, working capital and general corporate purposes. The proceeds from this financing, combined with current cash, cash equivalents and investments, are expected to fund current operations into late 2026.