Merrion Pharmaceuticals has sliced the price for an initial public stock offering.
Merrion, which is based in Ireland and has major operations in Wilmington, cut the stock offering price to between $6 and $7 a share in a regulatory filing earlier this week. Merrion had planned to seek a price between $10 and $12.
Merrion, which was founded in 2004, develops oral drug-delivery technology. In April, it announced plans to go public.
An offering of 4 million shares would produce between $24 million and $28 million. Merrion stock would trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol MERR. Funds would be used for clinical trials and research, according to the company.
Under its marketing slogan, “Making Medicines Better,” Merrion is developing means of taking drugs orally rather than through injections and other “complex treatment regimes.” By making drugs easier to take, the company hopes to improve patient compliance.
"We aim to be the premier supplier of oral drug delivery technology to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries," company executives told WRAL Local Tech Wire shortly after the firm’s launch.
Merrion recently received a U.S. patent for a drug-delivery system based on peptide compounds.
