Anthera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANTH), a biopharmaceutical company developing drugs to treat serious diseases associated with inflammation, today announced the closing of the underwriters' exercise of their over-allotment option to purchase an additional 604,492 shares of Anthera's common stock, at a price of $7.00 per share. The over-allotment option, which was exercised in part on March 31, 2010, was granted to the underwriters in connection with Anthera's previously announced initial public offering, which closed on March 4, 2010. The aggregate net proceeds to Anthera from the sale of the shares in the initial public offering and the exercise of the underwriters' over-allotment option was approximately $40.7 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by Anthera.
The sole book-running manager of the offering is Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Piper Jaffray & Co. is a co-lead manager of the offering and Cowen and Company, LLC and Merriman Curhan Ford & Co. are co-managers of the offering.
Concurrently with the closing of the initial public offering on March 4, 2010, Anthera completed a private placement of an aggregate of 2,598,780 shares of common stock to certain of its existing investors at a price of $6.58 per share, which was the initial public offering price per share less underwriting discounts and commissions, which resulted in net proceeds to Anthera of an additional $17.1 million. Total net proceeds to Anthera of the initial public offering, including the over-allotment option, and the concurrent private placement were approximately $57.8 million.
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