Revolution Medicines Inc. Explodes on First Day of Trading

Clinical stage oncology company Revolution Medicines, Inc. made its debut in the stock market on Thursday and was welcomed by Wall Street.

The stock skyrocketed 85% after underwriters priced the initial public offering at the top end of a revised range.

The California-based company sold 14 million shares priced at $17 each to raise $238 million. The deal was upsized from an earlier plan to offer 10 million shares priced at $14 to $16 each.

JPMorgan, Cowen, SVB Leerink and Guggenheim were underwriters on the deal.

Proceeds will be used to fund R&D, to move toward clinical trials for some candidates and for general corporate purposes.

“We are a clinical-stage precision oncology company focused on developing novel targeted therapies to inhibit elusive, high-value frontier targets within notorious growth and survival pathways, with particular emphasis on the RAS and mTOR signaling pathways,” said the company’s prospectus.

Revolution Medicine is focused on the development of novel therapies that will inhibit RAS and mTOR signaling pathways.

The RAS pathway, also known as the MAPK/ERK pathway, is a group of proteins within a cell that sends signals from cell-surface receptors to the DNA in the nucleus of the cell.

The company’s lead candidate is RMC-4630, a clinical-stage drug candidate that is designed to selectively inhibit the activity of SHP2, which plays an important role in multiple forms of cancer and in regulating the immune system.
The company is also developing a broad portfolio of inhibitors of other key frontier oncology targets within the notorious RAS pathway, as well as the related mTOR signaling cascade.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Revolution Medicines Inc. (NASDAQ: RVMD) and have not been compensated for this article.