Anbenitamab

Less than two months after raising $60 million — its second venture round in a decade — Alphamab is making the hop for the public markets. In its IPO filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange, the Suzhou-based company describes in more detail a game plan it sketched out in May: Beat down a direct path to market for its two lead bispecifics by running multiple parallel clinical programs, while prepping for the potential commercialization of its subcutaneous PD-L1 and advancing another CTLA-4-based immunosuppressant. The HKEX might not have attracted nearly as many biotech applicants as the Nasdaq amid continued concerns about turbulence, but it has delivered some hefty fortunes for the few that made it. Of the top 10 biopharma IPOs from January to June 2019, as compiled by GEN, half are listed on the HKEX. Hansoh, a pharma conglomerate that pulled its first filing late last year to bring a few more VCs into the fold, topped the chart with $1 billion in proceeds. Alphamab is betting that this buoyant tide will also float its boat. It had been preparing for the IPO as soon as Hong Kong financial regulators greenlighted rule amendments to allow listings of pre-revenue biotechs, spinning out Alphamab Oncology from the rest of the biotech pipeline. With KN046, which targets both PD-L1 and CTLA-4, Alphamab is looking at non-small cell lung cancer, triple-negative breast cancer and esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma; KN026 is designed to treat HER2 expressing solid tumors by hitting two epitopes of the receptor. The plan also calls for the construction of new manufacturing and R&D sites in their home city. Founder and CEO Ting Xu, who also chairs some of the other subsidiaries under Suzhou Alphamab, holds almost half of the oncology biotech via Rubymab. His close affiliates, Xitian Zhang and Chuanxiao Xue, are each in for around 10% while Advantech, PAG Growth and New Pavillion represent the biggest institutional backers at roughly 6% each. Social image: Shutterstock