An update on biotech’s ‘raise money on good news’ truism

A thing we’ve discussed before in this newsletter is the time-honored biotech tradition of selling shares to raise money immediately following good news, with the theory being that your share price is high and thus the resulting cash will be relatively cheap to acquire.

Last time, the evolution was one related to time: Where companies once waited days before a share offering, Deciphera Pharmaceuticals allowed just nine hours and one minute to pass between announcing positive clinical results and disclosing a $200 million stock sale.

This time the innovation comes both in speed and in defining “good news.” At 4:08 p.m. yesterday, ProQR Therapeutics announced that one of its treatments had received the FDA’s rare pediatric disease designation, which is more of a box-checking bit of news than the kind of coup that boosts share prices. And then, at 4:13 p.m. came this: “ProQR Announces Proposed Underwritten Public Offering of Ordinary Shares.” The plan is to raise $50 million.