Greater Cincinnati welcomed another public company to its ranks as downtown-headquartered biopharma Blue Water Vaccines began trading on the Nasdaq today — with a huge initial splash.
Blue Water Vaccines, whose lead candidate is a universal flu vaccine, began trading Friday on the Nasdaq capital market under the ticker “BWV." The company announced the pricing of its $20 million initial public offering Thursday with plans to sell more than 2.2 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $9 per share.
Shares opened at $50 — more than 400% above that price. Shares closed at $57.40.
Blue Water, formed in 2018 by CEO Joseph Hernandez, is developing several vaccine candidates, including a universal influenza vaccine, or a single-dose vaccine that would provide lifelong protection against all flu strains. Its initial technology was licensed from the University of Oxford.
According to the World Health Organization, there are normally more than 1 billion influenza infections leading to 290,000-650,000 deaths each year. The most effective way to prevent illness from influenza infection is vaccination, but current influenza vaccines are limited, the company said. Per the CDC, current vaccine effectiveness ranges from 20%-60% each year.
Blue Water also has a vaccine candidates for H1N1 and streptococcus pneumoniae, designed to specifically prevent middle ear infections, known as acute otitis media, or AOM, in children.
Local investor group CincyTech is Blue Water’s largest backer. Downtown-based Great American Insurance Co., the primary subsidiary of publicly traded American Financial (NYSE: AFG), also recently disclosed its financial ties to Blue Water Vaccines in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
CincyTech owns about 50% of Blue Water through two funds, including Cincinnati Cornerstone Investors. Hernandez owns 37%.
Prior to the IPO, Great American owned about 400,000 shares of Blue Water, and the company said it was considering buying as much as $1.5 million more stock in the IPO. That would give it 5.1% stake, if it follows through on its level of interest, Blue Water said.
Even with a successful IPO, Blue Water said it will require substantial additional funding to finance operations. When it announced plans to go public in October, the company said it only has cash on hand to fund operations into the second quarter.
A steady stream of local companies has recently made moves to public, including Norwood-based payroll and human resources company Paycor, commercial real estate company Phillips Edison and hardware distributor Hillman Group.
In November, Griid Infrastructure, a bitcoin mining startup, announced it will merge with Adit EdTech Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a deal valued at $3.3 billion. The deal has yet to close.
