Atlanta biotech company Virios Therapeutics files for $34M IPO
Atlanta biotech company Virios Therapeutics has filed to raise $34 million in an initial public stock offering.
Virios is a development-stage company focused on developing antiviral therapies to treat diseases associated with a viral-triggered abnormal immune response, such as fibromyalgia, a widespread chronic pain disorder including severe symptoms of fatigue that can last for three months or longer.
The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, the company said in an Aug. 28 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Virios is the second metro-Atlanta biomedical company to announce IPO plans recently. Pharmaceutical company Inhibikase Therapeutics Inc. in July filed to raise $18 million in an initial public stock offering. Inhibikase is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for Parkinson’s Disease and related disorders.
Virios has not commercialized any products and has never generated revenue from the commercialization of any product. It incurred losses in 2018 and 2019 and has an accumulated deficit of $18.7 million.
The company’s lead product candidate, called “IMC-1,” is a combination of two other antiviral drugs. “Since we are combining proprietary doses of two approved drugs, our fixed dose combination development candidate has the advantage of being eligible for submission to the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] for approval” and into a proof of concept study “at a fraction of the cost of traditional drug development,” Virios says in its filing.
Proceeds from the IPO would be used to conduct trials, toxicology studies and a proof of concept study to expand “IMC-1” beyond fibromyalgia.
Virios has just four full-time employees. It is led by Chairman and CEO Greg Duncan, who joined the company in April. Duncan has held executive positions in both public and private life-science companies at Pfizer, UCB and Celtaxsys, Virios says. Other company executives include Richard Burch, president; Dr. R. Michael Gendreau, chief medical officer; Ralph Grosswald, vice president of operations; and Angela Walsh, vice president of finance and treasurer.
Virios is seeking to list shares of common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “VIRI.”