PROVIDENCE – Ocean Biomedical Inc. hopes to raise up to $22 million in an amended initial public offering filed with Securities and Exchange Commission on April 8.
The biopharmaceutical company, located at 55 Claverick St., is offering 2 million shares of common stock with the anticipated price of $10-$12 per share.
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Founded in 2019, the company has thus far suffered heavy financial losses while pursuing programs in oncology, fibrosis, infectious disease and inflammation to bridge the “bench-to-bedside” gap between medical research discoveries and patient solutions. It currently has licenses with Brown University, Stanford University, and Rhode Island Hospital and is also working on an anti-inflammatory product for COVID-19.
Ocean Biomedical also hopes to collect an additional $7 million from a separate “private placement” stock sale to the University of California Regents, who have agreed to buy 707,000 shares at $11.00 per share, according to the SEC filing.
The company plans to use money raised from the public offering to fund Phase 1 clinical trials of certain treatments over the next 12 to 18 months, repay a loan from Second Street Capital LLC, for business development activities, for working capital and other general corporate purposes, including $7 million toward “payment of certain accrued expenses and contingent payments due upon the closing of this offering,” per the SEC filing.
Ocean Biomedical originally filed for an initial IPO in June 2021 to raise $100 million, however that was pulled. This latest IPO has been amended seven times. The company cut the size of its filing on Feb. 4, with the number of shares reduced to 2 million from 6.25 million on July 26, 2021, with the price range increased from $10 to $12.
The company noted in its SEC filing it has “incurred significant net losses since our inception and have financed our operations principally through personal payments made by our executive chairman and founder and by executing contracts with contingent payment plans that will require the use of proceeds from the IPO.
“We anticipate continuing to incur significant research and development and other expenses related to our ongoing operations, and we do not expect to generate income, profits or positive cash flow for the foreseeable future,” the company said. “For the years ended Dec. 31, 2020 and 2021, we reported [net losses] of $1.7 million and $62.3 million, respectively.”
At the end of 2021, the company had nine employees and an accumulated deficit of $64.2 million, according to the SEC filing.
Ocean Biomedical was founded by Dr. Jack Elias, the former dean of Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School; Dr. Jake Kurtis, current chairman of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown and Chirinjeev Kathuria. It plans to be listed on the NASDAQ as OCEA.
