Quarterly report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)

Nature of Business

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Nature of Business
6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2016
Nature of Business  
Nature of Business

1. Nature of Business

 

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (the "Company"), a Delaware corporation formed in November 2011, is a biopharmaceutical company seeking an understanding of the non-coding region of the genome to advance new medicines to control the expression of disease-driving genes. The Company has built a proprietary platform designed to analyze this unexploited region of DNA in human disease tissue to identify and drug novel targets linked to genomically defined patient populations.

 

The Company is subject to a number of risks similar to those of other early stage companies, including dependence on key individuals; risks inherent in the development and commercialization of medicines to treat human disease; competition from other companies, many of which are larger and better capitalized; risks relating to obtaining and maintaining necessary intellectual property protection; and the need to obtain adequate additional financing to fund the development of its product candidates. If the Company is unable to raise capital when needed or on attractive terms, it would be forced to delay, reduce, eliminate or out-license certain of its research and development programs or future commercialization efforts.

 

On July 6, 2016, the Company completed an initial public offering (“IPO”), in which the Company issued and sold 4,600,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $12.50 per share, including 600,000 shares of common stock sold pursuant to the underwriters’ exercise of their option to purchase additional shares of common stock, for aggregate gross proceeds of $57.5 million. The Company received approximately $49.9 million in net proceeds after deducting $7.6 million of underwriting discounts and commissions and offering costs. Upon the closing of the IPO, all of the outstanding shares of convertible preferred stock automatically converted into 15,988,800 shares of common stock at the applicable conversion ratio then in effect. Subsequent to the closing of the IPO, there were no shares of preferred stock outstanding. In connection with the IPO, the Company amended and restated its Fourth Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to change the authorized capital stock to 200,000,000 shares designated as common stock, and 10,000,000 shares designated as preferred stock, all with a par value of $0.001 per share. The financial statements as of June 30, 2016, including share and per share amounts, do not give effect to the IPO, as it closed subsequent to June 30, 2016.

 

The Company has incurred significant annual net operating losses in every year since its inception. It expects to continue to incur significant and increasing net operating losses for at least the next several years. The Company’s net losses were $13.4 million and $29.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2014 and 2015, respectively, and $12.0 million and $22.6 million for the three and six months ended June 30, 2016, respectively. As of June 30, 2016, the Company had an accumulated deficit of $76.1 million. The Company has not generated any revenues from product sales, has not completed the development of any product candidate and may never have a product candidate approved for commercialization. The Company has financed its operations to date primarily through private placements of its preferred stock. The Company has devoted substantially all of its financial resources and efforts to research and development and general and administrative expense to support such research and development. The Company’s net losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year. Net losses and negative cash flows have had, and will continue to have, an adverse effect on the Company’s stockholders' (deficit) equity and working capital. The Company believes that the proceeds from the IPO, together with existing cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, 2016, will enable it to fund its operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements at least through mid-2018, which the Company expects will allow it to achieve initial clinical data readouts for its two lead development programs.