Actuate’s upcoming IPO may be on the smaller side in comparison to its biotech peers that have publicly listed this year, but that hasn’t stopped the cancer-focused company from continuing to tweak its offering.
A week ago, Actuate confirmed IPO plans to offer 5.5 million shares of common stock priced somewhere between $8 and $10 apiece, with a further 833,333 shares available to underwriters. Assuming the final share price landed at $9, Actuate had estimated this offering would bring in $45.1 million—rising to $52 million if underwriters went all in.
But, three days later, Actuate had decided to slash the number of shares on offer to just 2.7 million, with 416,666 shares on offer to underwriters. This downsized offering was only expected to bring in $21.8 million—rising to $25.3 million if underwriters bought up all of their shares.
Now, the biotech has made another—less severe—amendment. In a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing yesterday, the company said it has slightly boosted the planned offering to 2.95 million shares, with 442,500 shares available to underwriters.
With Actuate sticking to its original pricing range of $8 to $10, it means the recalculated IPO would still fall in the twenties of millions. Specifically, the company is now expecting net proceeds of $23.2 million, or $27 million if underwriters buy up their allocated shares.
The biotech had already reduced its clinical ambitions when it halved its expected intake from the IPO last week, and the company stuck with these more modest goals in yesterday’s filing.
For example, Actuate had originally hoped to build on an ongoing phase 1 dose-escalation trial of its drug elraglusib 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 included in Actuate’s plans, the phase 2 study has been listed as “subject to future funding” in the two most recent filings.
Two other clinical goals that still appear to have been delayed until further cash can be found are 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. Those programs were expected to cost a combined $9.3 million, based on last week’s SEC filing.
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.
It’s not uncommon for companies to rethink their offering in the days before they head to the Nasdaq. Last Friday also saw Artiva Biotherapeutics hit the public markets with an upsized $167 million IPO that involved the natural killer cell therapy biotech slashing its share price from around $15 to $12 while boosting the total number of shares available from 10 million to 16 million.