Actuate Therapeutics became the latest biotech to join the Nasdaq this week with a scaled-back IPO that brought in $22.4 million.
The Texas- and Ireland-based company had initially outlined plans in July for a $45.1 million offering but soon reduced this to closer to the $22 million mark. The biotech continued to make some minor amends before settling on its final offer of selling 2.8 million shares priced $8 apiece—the lower end of its anticipated range—it explained in a post-market release yesterday.
Underwriters also have a 30-day option to pick up a further 420,000 shares at the same price.
Most biotechs that have gone public in 2024 have seen their share price sink following their IPO. Actuate, which listed its shares under the ticker “ACTU” on Tuesday, seemed to avoid this fate at first, with the stock trading up 19% at $9.15 by Wednesday's close. However, the share price was fluctuating on Thursday morning.
An injectable form of Actuate’s drug elraglusib is in a phase 2 trial for pancreatic cancer, one of the toughest targets in oncology, and some of the IPO proceeds will be spent on completing this midstage study.
The biotech had also been hoping to build on an ongoing phase 1 dose-escalation trial in refractory Ewing sarcoma—a rare type of bone cancer that can affect children and younger adults—by launching a phase 2 portion. But, while completing the phase 1 trial is still listed under Actuate’s plans, the phase 2 study was amended to “subject to future funding” when the IPO was scaled back last month.
Two other clinical goals for Actuate were also put on the back burner at the same time, namely a phase 1 dose-escalation study for an oral version of elraglusib in patients with advanced, refractory solid cancer and a phase 2 study in refractory metastatic melanoma.
Elraglusib is designed to bind to GSK-3β, disrupting cancer pathways associated with the invasion of tumor cells and resistance to chemotherapeutic agents and radiation. Preclinical tests suggested the intravenous small molecule could have an impact on diseases like urothelial cancer and renal cell carcinoma, leading Actuate to take the candidate into human studies in 2018.