First Biotech IPO of 2020
Two marquee names in oncology have joined forces to launch the first biotech IPO of the new decade, a cancer drug developer. Black Diamond Therapeutics filed on Friday for an IPO worth up to $100 million, becoming the first biotech of the decade to announce its intention to go public.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company was founded to develop genetically-derived solutions to a variety of cancer conditions through its MAP platform, using IPO proceeds to bring its new oncogene approach into the clinic. The a very-early-stage biopharma company is developing a platform that identifies small molecule kinase inhibitors, which help to slow or stop cancer. There are said to be promising in vitro results for the company’s lead candidate.
Oncology biotech companies have driven record investment. The first IPO of 2019, Poseida Therapeutics, was also a cancer-focused biotech.
According to Jason Mast of Endpoints, “The first company launched out of Versant’s Basel-based discovery engine in December 2018, Black Diamond leveraged a high-profile C-suite and emerging science to rapidly rake in cash: Nearly $200 million within a year of (its) emergence from stealth mode, including an $85 million Series C last month.”
Black Diamond is being run by David Epstein and Elizabeth Buck, two former developers of the cancer drug Tarceva. The technology is a form of targeted oncology called allosteric therapies, which are similar to other oncogenic drugs, such as kinase inhibitors, that inhibit the main binding site of a protein fueling cancer. Allosteric therapies inhibit a different part of the protein that may have mutated.
Black Diamond has spent over a year mapping these mutations, before raising the Series C on the promise of pushing its leading drug candidate, the BDTX-189 drug for HER2 and EGFR mutations, into a Phase 1/2 trial. BDTX-189, a tumor agnostic inhibitor, is expected to enter Phase 1/2 trials later in 2020. The company promises to use the majority of the IPO proceeds for the same goal, with some of the rest going to a preclinical glioblastoma program.
According to Seeking Alpha, management says it will use the net proceeds from the IPO as follows: “to fund the Phase 1/2 development of BDTX-189; to identify a lead development candidate and conduct IND-enabling studies in our glioblastoma program; for the continued development of our discovery programs; and the remaining proceeds for continued development of our MAP platform, hiring of additional personnel, capital expenditures, costs of operating as a public company and other general corporate purposes.”
On the same day as the Black Diamond filing, Shanghai-based oncology startup I-Mab Biopharma updated its filing with detailed information. It is expected to be the year’s first biotech to price, on January 16. While I-Mab’s announcement came in October, its new filing offers more detail into a company that hopes to become the first Chinese biotech to list on the Nasdaq exchange since Zai Lab debuted in 2017.
I-Mab expects to price between $13 and $14 per share and raise $87 million. Proceeds will be used to fund clinical trials, while building a manufacturing facility in China and research facilities in the US. The company conducts proof-of-concept trials in the US and uses the data for trials in China. When the drug is clinically validated in the US, I-Mab retains Chinese rights for further development and global out-licensing. Most of the company’s assets are in oncology, but some are in other areas.
