bluebird bio Announces Proposed Public Offering of Common Stock

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--bluebird bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLUE) today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of $400 million of its common stock. bluebird bio also intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional fifteen percent (15%) of the shares of common stock offered in the public offering. All of the shares in the proposed offering are to be sold by bluebird bio.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, BofA Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Cowen are acting as joint book-running managers and Wells Fargo Securities is acting as co-manager of the proposed offering. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.

The shares are being offered by bluebird bio pursuant to an automatically effective shelf registration statement that was previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A preliminary prospectus supplement relating to and describing the terms of the offering will be filed with the SEC and will be available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. When available, copies of the preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to these securities may also be obtained by contacting one of the following: Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attn: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, telephone: [phone], facsimile: [phone], email: [e-mail]; BofA Merrill Lynch, NC1-004-03-43, 200 North College Street, 3rd floor, Charlotte, NC 28255-0001, Attn: Prospectus Department, email: [e-mail]; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or by telephone at [phone] or Cowen and Company, LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Services, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY, 11717, Attn: Prospectus Department, by telephone at [phone] or by fax at [phone]. The final terms of the offering will be disclosed in a final prospectus supplement to be filed with the SEC.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of, these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of such state or jurisdiction.

About bluebird bio, Inc.
With its lentiviral-based gene therapies, T cell immunotherapy expertise and gene editing capabilities, bluebird bio has built a pipeline with broad potential application in severe genetic diseases and cancer.

bluebird bio's gene therapy clinical programs include investigational treatment for cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, and treatment of transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia, also known as β-thalassemia major, and severe sickle cell disease.

bluebird bio's oncology pipeline is built upon the company's lentiviral gene delivery and T cell engineering, with a focus on developing novel T cell-based immunotherapies, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR T) and T cell receptor (TCR) therapies. The company’s lead oncology programs are anti-BCMA CAR T programs partnered with Celgene.

bluebird bio’s discovery research programs include utilizing megaTAL/homing endonuclease gene editing technologies with the potential for use across the company's pipeline.

bluebird bio has operations in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Durham, North Carolina and Zug, Switzerland.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the anticipated final terms, timing and completion of the proposed offering, and bluebird bio’s existing product candidates and research programs. Any forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to market conditions and satisfaction of customary closing conditions related to the proposed public offering, that the preliminary results from our clinical trials will not continue or be repeated in our ongoing clinical trials, the risk of cessation or delay of any of the ongoing or planned clinical studies and/or our development of our product candidates, the risk of a delay in the enrollment of patients in our clinical studies, risks that the current or planned clinical studies of the LentiGlobin drug product will be insufficient to support regulatory submissions or marketing approval in the United States and European Union, risks that the current clinical study of Lenti-D will be insufficient to support regulatory submissions or marketing approval in the United States and European Union, the risk that our collaborations, including the collaboration with Celgene, will not continue or will not be successful, and the risk that any one or more of our product candidates will not be successfully developed, approved or commercialized. There can be no assurance that bluebird bio will be able to complete the proposed public offering on the anticipated terms, or at all. For a discussion of other risks and uncertainties, and other important factors, any of which could cause our actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” in our annual report on Form 10-K and our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and bluebird bio undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.