January 5, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
NEW YORK – Six biotech companies announced their intentions to go public in bids to raise funds and test the strength of the market for new biotech stocks. The companies filed their intentions with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
Corvus Pharmaceuticals, which is developing cancer immunotherapies, said it is looking to raise $115 million in its initial public offering. Corvus said it wants to use the money it raises to carry its lead drug through clinical trials, as well as drive another therapy through preclinical development, as well as fund other early-stage research and development projects, the San Francisco Business Times reported this morning. Corvus, which will be traded as CRVS on the Nasdaq Exchange, is developing a checkpoint inhibitor, CPI-444, for the treatment of solid tumors. Corvus is working closely with Bay Area giant Genentech on developing a combination therapy with CPI-444 and Genentech’s experimental cancer drug atezolizumab.
The two-year-old Cambridge, Mass.-based company is developing gene therapy treatments through a gene editing process. The company, which filed its intention to go public with the SEC this morning, will offer up to $100 million in stock, the Boston Globe reported this morning.
Syndax filed its intent to go public with the SEC this morning, seeking up to $86 million in its IPO, according to a statement from Renaissance Capital. The Waltham, Mass.-based company is developing a therapy for treatment-resistant breast cancer. It plans to be listed on the Nasdaq Exchange under the symbol SNDX. Its lead product Entinostat is an oral, highly selective histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor that was granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation in combination with hormone therapy for advanced hormone receptor positive (HR+) breast cancer and is currently in Phase III testing in this indication.
Bavarian Nordic did not provide many details regarding its IPO, but the company is valued at $86.25 million, according to a brief on 24/7 Wall St. The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol BAVN. The New Jersey-based company’s lead product is Prostvac, an immuno-oncology agent administered subcutaneously, which stimulates an immune response that attacks prostate cancer cells. In March, Bavarian Nordic and Bristol-Myers Squibb struck a development deal for the immunotherapy.
Bay Area-based gene therapy development-company Audentes filed with the SEC Monday to raise up to $86 million in its IPO. Audentes, which will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol BOLD, is developing gene therapy treatments for X-Linked Myotubular Myopathy, according to a report by Renaissance Capital.
6. Reata Pharmaceuticals
Reata Pharmaceuticals filed with the SEC Monday and is seeking to raise $80 million in its IPO. The company will trade on the Nasdaq Exchange under the symbol RETA. Reata’s lead products are bardoxolone methyl and RTA 408, members of a class of small molecules called antioxidant inflammation modulators, or AIMs. Bardoxolone methyl is in Phase II clinical development for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH, and pulmonary hypertension due to interstitial lung disease. The lead candidate is expected to enter Phase III trials later this year. RTA 408 is in Phase II clinical development for the treatment of multiple diseases, including Friedreich’s ataxia. Last year saw a decline in the number of U.S. biotech IPOs from 2014. In 2015, there were 44 biotech IPOs, compared to 63 in 2014, the Boston Globe reported. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index made modest gains in 2015 of about 12 percent, down from the previous four years.
