Stoke Therapeutics IPO: What You Need To Know

Biotech stocks present an exciting investment opportunity, given the heady gains they can fetch if one places the right bet at the right time.

The IPO Terms

Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. this week proposes to offer 6.7 million shares at an estimated price range of $14-$16, according to an amended S-1 filing from June 12. (Editor's note: The IPO is now priced at $18 per share.)

At the mid-point of the estimated price range, the size of the offering is at $100.5 million.

The company seeks to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol STOK.

As Stoke qualifies as an "emerging growth company" and a "smaller reporting company" under the federal securities laws, it has the leeway to comply with certain reduced disclosure norms.

JPMorgan, Cowen, Credit Suisse and Cannacord Genuity are the underwriters for the offering.

The Company

Stoke, a Bedford, Massachusetts-based early-stage biopharma company founded in June 2014, pioneers a new way of treating underlying causes of several genetic diseases by precisely upregulating protein expression.

It is developing novel antisense oligonucleotide, or ASO, medicines targeting RNA and modulate precursor-mRNA, developed using its proprietary technology platform names TANGO - Targeted Augmentation of Nuclear Gene Output.

Stoke's lead product candidate STK-001 is being evaluate for Dravet's syndrome, a severe and genetic epilepsy. The company plans to submit an IND application for the candidate by early 2020, and initiate a Phase 1/2 trial in the first half of 2020.

The company is also striving to develop a second pre-clinical candidate to treat an additional genetic disease by the first half of 2020.

The Finances

As is common will all early-stage biotechs, the company is yet to turn in revenues. It reported a loss of $12.52 million for 2018 compared to a loss of $5.56 million in 2017. For the three months ended March 2019, the company reported a loss of $5.74 million.

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