Vital Therapies Expects To Price IPO In $16.00-$18.00 Per Share Range

(RTTNews) - Vital Therapies said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it expects to price its initial public offering between $16.00 and $18.00 per share. The company plans to offer 4.40 million shares through initial public offering.

The company said it has applied to list its common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol "VTL."

The underwriters have an option to purchase a maximum of 660,000 additional shares of common stock from the company.

The company plans to use the net proceeds from this offering to fund the Phase 3 clinical development of ELAD and the remainder for working capital and other general corporate purposes.

Vital Therapies is a biotherapeutic company focused on developing a cell-based therapy targeting the treatment of all forms of acute liver failure. The company's product candidate, the ELAD System, or ELAD, is a bio-artificial liver therapy that operates outside the body, or extracorporeal, and is designed to allow the patient's own liver to regenerate to a healthy state, or to stabilize the patient until transplant. ELAD has received orphan designation in the United States and Europe for the treatment of acute liver failure.

The company was incorporated in California in May 2003 as Vitagen Acquisition Corp., changed our name to Vital Therapies, Inc. in June 2003, and reincorporated in Delaware in January 2004.