Nasdaq Lists BioShares(TM) Biotechnology Clinical Trials Fund and BioShares(TM) Biotechnology Products Fund

New ETFs Track an Index of Clinical and Product Biotechnology Companies

NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nasdaq today announced that LifeSci Index Partners, LLC, will list two new exchange-traded funds, the BioShares^TM Biotechnology Clinical Trials Fund (Symbol: BBC) and the BioShares^TM Biotechnology Products Fund (Symbol: BBP), on The Nasdaq Stock Market. BBC and BBP will begin trading today, December 17, 2014.

"The landscape of the biotechnology sector has experienced dramatic shifts since the initial public offerings of Cetus and Genentech in the early 1980s," said Paul Yook, Co-Founder of LifeSci Index Partners. "Our BioShares funds are designed with the current biotechnology market in mind and offer investors unique and diversified portfolios of entrepreneurial biotechnology stocks by applying our rules-based index methodology."

BBC is a fund that seeks to track an index of biotechnology companies with a principal focus on running human clinical trials. BBP is a fund that seeks to track an index of biotechnology companies with one or more drugs approved by the FDA and in commercial production. For the first time, ETF investors can choose from these two distinctly different groups of stocks that are typically grouped together in other funds. The LifeSci Indexes are calculated and disseminated by an independent third party, Indxx, LLC.

Both funds employ an equal weighting approach that allows each security's performance to affect the ETF equally, regardless of the size of the company. In this way, a relatively small firm enjoying a major breakthrough can have a meaningful impact on the ETF. An equal weighting also serves to minimize the outsize impact that a handful of mega-cap biotech companies can have on more traditional, market-cap weighted indexes.

"We are pleased to welcome the innovative BioShares product suite to The Nasdaq Stock Market," said Jeff McCarthy, Vice President, Head of ETP Listings & Services at Nasdaq. "We are committed to strengthening our partnership with BioShares, supporting them through the entire product lifespan and introducing them to one of the single largest pools of liquidity."

Nasdaq operates an efficient platform for successfully introducing a product suite into one of the single largest pools of liquidity, including market participants which represent a full spectrum of investors. ETF issuers benefit from an end-to-end solution that provides ongoing product support including index licensing, listings opportunities, data offerings and trading services. As the home to some of the world's most innovative ventures, Nasdaq generates opportunities for issuers to access new markets and deliver new concepts that change the way the industry develops, manages and applies ETFs.