Exicure announced it had closed on $11.2M in private financing.
Exicure announced it had closed on $11.2M in private financing. It was led by Luye Pharma Group and included Eager Info Investments LTD, Knoll Capital Management and Purple Arch Ventures.
When put that way, the announcement seems to hide some of the big names involved in this company. The company recently brought in two sounds that totaled $31.5 million, and includes investors such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
John Carroll, with Endpoints News, writes, ”Aside from Gates, the group includes Eric Lefkofsky, co-founder of Groupon, former Microsoft strategy chief Craig Mundie, the Rathmann Family Foundation, retired Aon CEO Patrick Ryan, Illumina co-founder David Walt as well as Mark Tompkins and Katalyst Securities. They’re all backing a public company now, though shares aren’t trading yet.”
The company is developing a new class of drugs that uses proprietary 3-dimensional, spherical nucleic acid (SNA) architecture. Its lead programs focus on inflammatory diseases, genetic disorders and oncology.
“Nucleic acid therapeutics hold great promise because they target the underlying genetic source of disease,” said David Giljohann, Exicure’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “Toxicity and delivery have been the primary challenges for companies seeking to use nucleic acids in drug development. Our SNA technology seeks to overcome these challenges and to change the cost curves and development timelines of highly targeted medicines. We are advancing a pipeline of drugs for a broad range of chronic conditions and orphan diseases in dermatology, ophthalmology, respiratory and gastric disorders, and solid tumors. We welcome this new round of investors in Exicure as they bring great insight into rapidly emerging markets for our products.”
The investment was unusual, as well. Carroll writes, ”But that’s not his (Giljohann) only divergence from the standard course. He’s executed a ‘clean’ reverse merger with a completely empty shell to go out onto the OTC market—not Nasdaq. And, back in the norm, he’s followed up on his first round of Phase I data with plans to line up a series of Phase II studies to put his platform tech to a crucial test.”
“We thought, given the investor base, this was a simpler way” to go public, Giljohann told Carroll. “For us it was the best available option to take the company public.”
All told, Exicure has raised more than $75 million.
Exicure has three clinical-stage programs. They are: AST-005 for mild to moderate psoriasis, which is completing a Phase Ib trial soon; XUR 17, also for psoriasis, which expects to start clinical trials in the first quarter of 2018; and AST 008, a TLR9 agonist for solid tumors in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor. Trials are expected to begin soon.
Carroll writes, “Going public puts them on the SEC’s map, where they’ll have to file all their financials. An initial 8K provides some insight into their partnership with Purdue, which signed a $780 million partnership on 005, where they are taking the lead on the clinical work. According to the filing, Purdue got that deal rolling with a modest $10 million up front, with the rest due in milestones.”
In December 2016, Exicure entered into a research deal with Purdue Pharma. Purdue has an option to the full commercial rights to AST-005, as well as an option to pick up three more collaboration targets, and another option to the full worldwide development commercial rights to any therapeutic candidates that might be developed targeting the three additional targets. Purdue also has rights of first offer to a variety of potential collaboration targets.
