Splat: Singapore’s Aslan tanks on Nasdaq debut, raising $42M in IPO and trending down

May 4, 2018 02:10 PM EDT

Splat: Singapore's Aslan tanks on Nasdaq debut, raising $42M in IPO and trending down

Brittany Meiling

Singapore-based drugmaker Aslan Pharmaceuticals priced its IPO today way under Wall Street’s expectations, bringing in a little more than half the target haul it announced in March.

The company raised $42 million in the public offering Friday, a far cry from the $86 million it first set intentions for in a SEC filing just six weeks prior. It offered 6 million shares at $7.03, listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker $ASLN. Aslan’s stock dropped pretty immediately, sinking as low as 26% this morning to $5.28 per share. Although it’s climbing up as the hours tick by, the stock is still trading at about 18% below open as of press time.

Carl Firth

With a lead oncology drug in a pivotal study for biliary tract cancer and a slate of key catalysts coming up in other trials, Aslan plans to use the proceeds to push forward its pipeline. Helmed by Carl Firth — the former BD chief for AstraZeneca in Asia who owns 4.7% of the stock — Aslan has a global strategy to roll out its cancer drugs in China, the US, and Europe. The lead product candidate is varlitinib, a pan-HER drug that is also in the clinic for gastric, breast and colorectal cancers.

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Brittany Meiling

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Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer speaks at a meeting with President Donald Trump, members of the Coronavirus Task Force, and pharmaceutical executives in the Cabinet Room of the White House (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

July 7, 2020 07:49 AM EDTUpdated 08:05 AM

R&D

OWS shifts spotlight to drugs to fight Covid-19, handing Regeneron $450M to begin large scale manufacturing in the US

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

The US government is on a spending spree. And after committing billions to vaccines defense operations are now doling out more of the big bucks through Operation Warp Speed to back a rapid flip of a drug into the market to stop Covid-19 from ravaging patients — possibly inside of 2 months.

The beneficiary this morning is Regeneron, the big biotech engaged in a frenzied race to develop an antibody cocktail called REGN-COV2 that just started a late-stage program to prove its worth in fighting the virus. BARDA and the Department of Defense are awarding Regeneron a $450 million contract to cover bulk delivery of the cocktail starting as early as late summer, with money added for fill/finish and storage activities.

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Donald and Melania Trump watch the smoke of fireworks from the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2020 (via Getty)

July 5, 2020 02:12 PM EDTUpdated July 6, 06:43 AM

Bioregnum

Pharma

Coronavirus

Which drug developers offer Trump a quick, game-changing ‘solution’ as the pandemic roars back? Eli Lilly and AbCellera look to break out of the pack

We are unleashing our nation’s scientific brilliance and will likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.

— Donald Trump, July 4

Next week administration officials plan to promote a new study they say shows promising results on therapeutics, the officials said. They wouldn’t describe the study in any further detail because, they said, its disclosure would be “market-moving.”

— NBC News, July 3

Something’s cooking. And it’s not just July 4 leftovers involving stale buns and uneaten hot dogs.

Over the long weekend observers picked up signs that the focus in the Trump administration may swiftly shift from the bright spotlight on vaccines being promised this fall, around the time of the election, to include drugs that could possibly keep patients out of the hospital and take the political sting out of the soaring Covid-19 numbers causing embarrassment in states that swiftly reopened — as Trump cheered along.

So far, Gilead has been the chief beneficiary of the drive on drugs, swiftly offering enough early data to get remdesivir an emergency authorization and into the hands of the US government. But their drug, while helpful in cutting stays, is known for a limited, modest effect. And that won’t tamp down on the hurricane of criticism that’s been tearing at the White House, and buffeting the president’s most stalwart core defenders as the economy suffers.

We’ve had positive early-stage vaccine data, most recently from Pfizer and BioNTech, playing catchup on an mRNA race led by Moderna — where every little sign of potential trouble is magnified into a lethal threat, just as every advance excites a frenzy of support. But that race still has months to play out, with more Phase I data due ahead of the mid-stage numbers looming ahead. A vaccine may not be available in large enough quantities until well into 2021, which is still wildly ambitious.

So what about a drug solution?

Trump’s initial support for a panacea focused on hydroxychloroquine. But that fizzled in the face of data underscoring its ineffectiveness — killing trials that aren’t likely to be restarted because of a recent population-based study offering some support. And there are a number of existing drugs being repurposed to see how they help hospitalized patients.

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July 7, 2020 08:17 AM EDT

Venture

Deals

Investors give ailing Unum a lease on life and a whole new suite of experimental cancer drugs

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

Investors, it seems, are willing to give Unum Therapeutics one last shot — or at least one last shot to a company of that name.

The ailing cancer biotech, beset by a series of clinical holds and multiple failed lead programs, announced today that they’ve acquired Kiq LLC and that investors are putting in $104 million to advance Kiq’s pipeline of kinase inhibitors. Unum shareholders will now own only 16.2% of the company and CEO Chuck Wilson indicated that the cell therapies the biotech has worked on since its founding may be on their way out, saying Unum will “explore strategic options” for those products.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Director of Regulatory Affairs

Recursion Pharmaceuticals

Salt Lake City, UT

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July 7, 2020 07:46 AM EDT

Venture

Cell/Gene Tx

RA Capital doubles down on Siddhartha Mukherjee's vision for a new cell engineering approach, leading Vor's $110M Series B

Amber Tong

Editor

Vor Biopharma is muscling up.

CEO Robert Ang, who was reluctant to divulge the headcount when discussing his move from Neon Therapeutics to Vor last August, readily offered that the team has grown from 6 to 50 in less than a year. The biotech is moving to a larger office on Cambridge Parkway Drive in weeks, giving it more space to complete the IND-enabling work and manufacturing scale-up — conducted by a CDMO partner — in preparation for clinical trials planned for the first half of 2021.

July 7, 2020 06:56 AM EDT

Coronavirus

Covid-19 roundup: Left out no longer, Novavax secures largest Warp Speed deal yet: $1.6B

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

It looks like Novavax won’t be left out of Operation Warp Speed after all.

A month after the Gaithersburg, MD biotech saw its shares tumble when it was left off the first reported list of finalists for the White House’s Covid-19 vaccine accelerator, HHS and the Department of Defense have announced a $1.6 billion deal to scale up their Covid-19 candidate. It is the largest deal HHS has announced yet, eclipsing the $1.2 billion deal the administration reached with AstraZeneca in May.

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Douglas Love, Annexon CEO (Annexon)

July 6, 2020 06:35 AM EDT

IPOs

IPO bound? Actually, Annexon was already prepped and primed to toss its S-1 to Wall Street as investors rallied

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

The Wall Street IPO shuffle generally calls for a little distance between the crossover ante and the Wall Street double, but with the window on the street wide open and biotech sizzling hot, who’s waiting?

The crew at Annexon didn’t leave anyone in suspense for long about their IPO plans. A day after the Bay Area biotech with clinical plans to target neurodegeneration quietly unveiled a $100 million raise, they were back with an S-1 outlining a pitch to double that — or more.

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July 6, 2020 05:00 PM EDT

Regulatory

Cellectis slammed after patient dies and FDA slaps a hold on their trial for an off-the-shelf CAR-T for multiple myeloma

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Cellectis was slammed after the market close on Monday as the biotech reported that the FDA demanded it hit the brakes on their MELANI-01 trial for their off-the-shelf cell therapy UCARTCS1A after one of the patients in the study died of treatment-related cardiac arrest.

The multiple myeloma patient had previously been treated unsuccessfully with various therapies, noted the biotech, and had been given dose level two (DL2) of their allogeneic CAR-T.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Head of Biology

Orum Therapeutics

Cambridge, MA

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Shoshanna Shendelman, Applied Therapeutics CEO (Applied Therapeutics)

July 6, 2020 10:11 AM EDTUpdated 10:22 AM

Pharma

A little biotech slaps back at a 'criminal' short attack, vowing to pursue a prosecution of their case

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

As short attacks go, Biotech Research Partners’ assault on Applied Therapeutics’ “cherry picked” data and a variety of so-called red flags didn’t cause a whole lot of damage. Ahead of the July 4 holiday, its shares $APLT were dinged and showed signs of quick recovery.

But that didn’t stop an incendiary response, as the biotech swung into action bright and early Monday morning.

Applied Therapeutics accused the authors of the short report of manipulating graphs and figures, misrepresenting data and included factual misrepresentations — all of which added up, in their view, to fraud.

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Bill Haney, Dragonfly CEO (Dave Pedley/Getty Images for SXSW)

July 6, 2020 09:01 AM EDTUpdated 09:13 AM

Deals

Cell/Gene Tx

A booming Dragonfly is taking its TriNKETs to Copenhagen as the latest Bristol Myers pact spurs expansion plans — outside the US

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Bristol Myers Squibb is making a habit out of collaborating with the crew at Dragonfly, adding their 3rd deal in a series that now will take them into newly charted R&D territory. And the fast-growing team at the Cambridge-based biotech is adding a facility in Copenhagen for its next growth spurt, where the government is making it easy to recruit scientists internationally as the U.S. throttles back.

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