January 15, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Clinical stage biotech Five Prime Therapeutics Inc intends to put its experimental drug FPA008 to work tackling six tumor types in clinical trials that combine it with Bristol-Myers Squibb ’s Opdivo, its chief executive told audience members at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference Thursday.
That news initially pushed shares of the Bay Area biotech up in Thursday trading--more welcome news on a day when Five Prime saw its rating upgraded by several analysts and investor websites.
Five Prime CEO Lewis T. “Rusty” Williams made the comments at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference which began Monday in San Francisco and is the oldest and largest conference of its type. It includes 300 of the largest biotech, healthcare and biopharma companies presenting their top-line data and estimates to 4,000 eager bankers, analysts, institutional investors, hedge funds and journalists.
Opdivo and FPA008 are immunotherapies, though FPA008 had initially been touted as a rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment. That will change under a new partnership with Bristol-Myers, because promising results treating solid tumors has lead the two into a Phase I clinical trial in RA. Five Prime has said that preclinical data suggest that combining antibodies targeting PD-1 and CSF1R may lead to an enhanced anti-tumor immune response compared to either approach alone in treating cancer.
With a $565.7 million market cap, and FPA008 in its pipeline, it clear Five Prime intends to take on similar sized competitors moving into 2015.
The company has a one-year low of $10.50 and a one-year high of $28.47, with a 50-day moving average of $23.70 and a 200-day moving average of $15.53.
Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc. is focused on therapies that can treat cancer, inflammation and the intersection in immuno-oncology, an area with significant therapeutic potential and a growing focus of the company’s research and development activities. So far, Five Prime has entered into strategic collaborations with leading global pharmaceutical companies and has promising product candidates in clinical and late preclinical development.
On Jan. 12, the South San Francisco-based company announced the closing of a recent public offering, which raked in 84.3 million, before underwriting discounts and commissions, structuring fees and expenses. Five Prime offered investors 3,829,944 shares of its common stock, which includes 419,994 shares sold upon the partial exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares.
Citigroup, Leerink Partners and Wells Fargo Securities acted as bookrunners on the deal, while Guggenheim Securities and Oppenheimer & Co. acted as co-managers
Opdivo is already approved in Japan for the treatment of patients with unresectable melanoma, and is being developed in multiple tumor types in more than 50 clinical trials.
The new trials will operate under the oversight of both Bristol and Five Prime, who have teamed up before. The two initially announced the plan in November, saying Bristol-Myers Squibb will make a one-time payment of $30 million to Five Prime and will be responsible for study costs.
“We are pleased to establish a second collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb in the area of immuno-oncology,” said Williams said in November. “Their vision aligns with our commitment to advancing promising immune-modulating targets, alone or in combination, to create next-generation immunotherapies for cancer patients. We look forward to initiating this study and expanding the development of FPA008 as a potential immunotherapy for these six types of cancer.”
