Ophthotech nets $56.3mm in first FOPO since its IPO last year

In its first financing since completing an IPO this past September, eye drug developer Ophthotech Corp. netted $56.3mm through the follow-on public offering of 1.9mm common shares at $31.50. Existing stockholders also sold 729k shares. The company will use the money to conduct additional clinical studies of Fovista in combination with anti-VEGF therapies for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and for other ophthalmic diseases; for a Phase II/III trial of Zimura for geographic atrophy (a severe form of dry AMD); and a Phase II study of Zimura and Fovista in tandem with an anti-VEGF drug for a portion of wet AMD patients.