November.24.2015
Orrick represented the underwriters in the $51 million initial public offering (IPO) of clinical stage biopharmaceutical company Axsome Therapeutics Inc. Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc. is the sole book-running manager for the offering. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. is acting as lead manager and Brean Capital, LLC is acting as co-manager.
The offering of 5,666,667 shares of common stock priced to the public at $9.00 per share and began trading on the Nasdasq Capital Market on November 19, 2015, under the ticker symbol “AXSM.” Axsome has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an aggregate of 850,000 additional shares of common stock at the IPO price to cover any over-allotments. The offering closed on November 24, 2015. Axsome Therapeutics is developing novel therapies for the management of pain and other central nervous system disorders.
The Orrick team was led by corporate partner Brian Margolis and was supported by associates Samir Bakhru, Brian Blood and Ken Marx. In addition, compensation and benefits support was provided by Jason Flaherty and Keith Tidwell, regulatory support was provided by Zachary Huey and Bob Lawrence, patent review was provided by Anthony Kuhlmann, and tax assistance was provided by Jamie Larkin and John Narducci.
In 2015, Orrick advised on or is in the process of working on 15 publicly and confidentially-filed equity offerings for technology companies and life sciences companies, including both IPOs and follow-ons. Over the past two years, the firm has helped clients complete nearly 600 venture capital-backed transactions raising over $9 billion and closed private technology company mergers and acquisitions valued at nearly $14 billion. The firm was named Tech Group of the Year for 2014 by Law360.