In connection with its previously announced public offering of common shares in Canada and the United States (the “Offering”), BELLUS Health Inc. (“BELLUS Health” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ:BLU) today announced that it has entered into an underwriting agreement with Jefferies, Evercore ISI and RBC Capital Markets as joint book-running managers and LifeSci Capital as lead manager (collectively, the “Underwriters”), relating to the public offering of 16,540,541 common shares. The shares are being sold at a public offering price of US$9.25 per common share. Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on July 18, 2022, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. In addition, the Underwriters have been granted a 30-day option following the date hereof to purchase up to an additional 2,481,081 common shares from the Company.
The Offering is being made in Canada pursuant to a prospectus supplement (the “Supplement”) to the Company’s amended and restated short form base shelf prospectus dated December 14, 2021 amending and restating the Company’s short form base shelf prospectus dated December 23, 2020 (the “A&R Base Shelf Prospectus”) and in the United States pursuant to a registration statement on Form F-10, as it may be amended from time to time, containing the Supplement and the A&R Base Shelf Prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) in accordance with the Multijurisdictional Disclosure System established between Canada and the United States.
The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering primarily to fund BLU-5937 research and development activities, working capital needs and other general corporate purposes, as set out in the Supplement.
The Company’s common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”) and the Nasdaq Global Market (“Nasdaq”) under the symbol “BLU”. For the purposes of the TSX approval, the Company intends to rely on the exemption set forth in Section 602.1 of the TSX Company Manual, which provides that the TSX will not apply its standards to certain transactions involving eligible interlisted issuers on a recognized exchange, such as Nasdaq.
