Aprea Therapeutics, a Karolinska Institute spinout, is set to raise as much as $92m from an offering that would bank Karolinska Development a return of up to $8m.
Aprea Therapeutics, a US-based oncological therapeutics spinout of Karolinska Institute, aims to raise a maximum of $92m from its forthcoming public listing with a target price range of $14 to $16.
The company will issue 5 .75 million shares. Aprea originally envisaged raising proceeds of $68.3m when it filed for the initial public offering earlier this month.
Founded in 2003, Aprea Therapeutics is advancing cancer treatments that work by restoring functionality to mutated p53 tumour suppressor proteins, a manifestation of many cancers that often leads to a more severe prognosis and creates limited scope for existing treatments.
Aprea’s lead asset, APR-246, is in late-stage development for haematological malignancies, such as acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), as well as solid tumour-borne ovarian cancers.
Aprea will put between $20m and $30m from the offering into phase 1b/2 clinical trials of the drug in both solid and haematological malignancies, and further studies should the tests prove successful.
Between $5m and $10m has been set aside for APR-246’s continued preclinical and clinical development and to prepare a new drug application submission for MDS, while $10m to $15m has been earmarked to progress another drug candidate called APR-548 towards investigational new drug status and initial clinical testing.
The remaining proceeds will fund Aprea’s general R&D pipeline, working capital requirements and corporate activities including the scaling of its infrastructure in response to progress on its development pipeline.
Aprea Therapeutics closed its latest round, a $62.8m series C, in February 2019 after collecting a $5.7m extension from funds managed by Janus Henderson Investors.
Redmile Group had led the initial $56.8m close in November 2018 with backing from Karolinska Development, Rock Springs Capital, 5AM Ventures, Versant Ventures, HealthCap and Sectoral Asset Management, after a $51m series B round in 2016 where Karolinska Development converted $7.2m of its outstanding loans.
The series B round was co-led by Versant and 5AM Ventures with contributions from Sectoral and HealthCap. Details of Aprea’s series A round remain unclear, but the company was one of 13 Karolinska Development portfolio companies to secure a share of $40m from Btov Partners and Rosetta Capital in 2013
Östersjöstiftelsen, a Swedish government-founded body for Baltic and East European studies at Södertörn University, and Praktikerinvest, a corporate venturing division of healthcare provider Praktikertjänst, supplied an unspecified amount in 2005, before Swedish state-owned investment unit Industrifonden purchased a stake of undisclosed size in 2007.
Karolinska Development, the commercialisation firm spun out of Karolinska Institute, currently owns 17.2% interest in Aprea Therapeutics and will net profits of between $4.6m and $8m if the target price is met, while reducing its stake to 12.7%.
Versant Ventures and 5AM Ventures are joint largest shareholders with 17.7% each, which will be both be diluted to 13.1%.
Other notable shareholders include HealthCap (which will see its stake go from 14.8% to 10.9%) , Redmile Group (from 13.2% to 9.7%) and Sectoral Asset Management (from 10.4% to 7.7%).
JP Morgan Securities, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets are acting as joint book-running managers of the proposed offering, which is set to take place on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
