NEO-PV-01

Although the size of the IPO is one aspect of determining the success of a company’s public launch, it’s not the only metric. How the stock does in the ensuing months is a very important consideration. This year was a record-breaking year for biotech IPOs, with a couple breaking all sorts of records. Most notable for the size of their IPOs was Moderna , which raised about $604 million in its much-anticipated offering. Another big IPO for the year was Allogene Therapeutics , which raised $324 million at a $2.2 billion market cap. And in July, Rubius Therapeutics raised $241 million with its IPO. Although the size of the IPO is one aspect of determining the success of a company’s public launch, it’s not the only metric. How the stock does in the ensuing months is a very important consideration . For example, as of December 19, Moderna’s stock is down about 26.09 percent from its IPO launch, Rubius is down 25.83 percent, but Allogene is up 42.72 percent. The end of the year has been marked with dramatic stock shifts , with the Dow falling 508 points, the S&P 500 down 2.1 percent and the Nasdaq into negative territory for the year. At this point, a stock drop may have more to do with investors’ concerns about the Trump administration’s trade policies and the overall economy than it has to do with the value of specific companies. With that metric in mind, let’s look at this year’s biotech winners and losers. Winners Tilray. With global operations, Tilray focuses on medical cannabis research, cultivation, processing and distribution. It is the first GMP-certified medical cannabis producer to supply cannabis flower and extract products to patients, physicians, pharmacies, hospitals, governments and researchers on five continents. Tilray’s shares have increased a whopping 350 percent since its IPO on July 19. Most recently, the company signed a global framework agreement with Sandoz AG , the generic and biosimilar division of Novartis . Allakos . Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., Allakos is focused on eosinophilic gastritis and other mast cell and eosinophil-driven diseases. Its lead program is AK0022, an antibody that targets Siglec-8, an inhibitory receptor found on eosinophils and mast cells. Company shares have risen 210.11 percent since its IPO on July 19. The company recently indicated it had completed enrollment in its Phase II trial for chronic spontaneous urticaria, cholinergic urticaria and dermatographic urticaria. ARMO BioSciences . Also headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., ARMO perhaps should have an asterisk by it. The company focuses on immuno-oncology. The company’s IPO was on January 26. Company shares increased 194 percent this year. Why it deserves an asterisk is because Eli Lilly and Company acquired the company in late June for $50 per share in cash. ARMO’s AM0010 (pegilodecakin) is currently in a global Phase III trial in metastatic pancreatic cancer. Inspire Medical Systems . Based in Maple Grove, Minn., Inspire is a medical device company focused on sleep apnea. Since its IPO on May 3, company shares have increased about 163.44 percent. Liquidia Technologies . Headquartered in Morrisville, NC, Liquidia’s proprietary PRINT technology gives the pharma industry the ability to design drug particles uniformly and in a variety of sizes and shapes. This can improve the therapeutic potential of the drugs, while minimizing risk and cutting time to market. Since its IPO on July 26, shares have risen about 99.55 percent. Losers Genprex . With headquarters in Austin, Texas and Cambridge, Mass., Genprex is a clinical-stage gene therapy company. The company has two ongoing clinical trials. One is a Phase I trial at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center evaluating intravenous Oncoprex monotherapy in stage IV recurrent, metastatic lung cancer. The other is a Phase II trial of Oncoprex in combination with Tarceva (erlotinib) in stage IIIB/IV lung cancer patients. Since the company’s IPO on March 29, shares have fallen 78 percent. Eyenovia . Based in New York, Eyenovia is a late-stage ophthalmic biopharma company working on therapies for front and back-of-the-eye diseases, including myopia progression, glaucoma and other eye diseases. The company announced on December 3 that it had completed patient enrollment in its Phase III MIST-1 trial and enrolled its first patient in the second Phase III trial, MIST-2, for its Phase III MicroStat program for pharmacologic mydriasis, or dilation of the pupil for an eye exam. Since its IPO on January 25, shares have dropped 70.90 percent. Menlo Therapeutics . Located in Menlo Park, Calif., the company focuses on developing and commercializing serlopitant to treat pruritus (itching) associated with various conditions. On December 10, the company announced positive top-line results from MTI-109, its Phase II clinical trial of serlopitant for pruritus associated with psoriasis. The trial met its primary endpoint. The company’s shares have dropped 70.18 percent since its January 25 th IPO. BioXcel Therapeutics. Headquartered in West Lebanon, NH, BioXcel manufactures high quality, bulk quantity monoclonal antibodies for biomedical research. Since its IPO on March 7, shares have dropped 69.73 percent. Neon Therapeutics . Based in Cambridge, Mass., Neon Therapeutics is focused on neoantigen-targeted therapies. On December 6, the company announced it had dosed its first patient with NT-003, Neon’s Phase Ib combination trial of NEO-PV-01, a personal neoantigen vaccine, in a patient with metastatic melanoma. The company launched its IPO on June 27. Since then, shares have dropped 66.81 percent.

We thought it would be insightful to look back at our previous lists to see where some of those companies are today. Here’s a look at the top 3 companies from the Top 20 Life Science Startups to Watch in the U.S. from 2017. Every year, BioSpace analyzes the biotech industry, looking for the hot new biotech startups to watch. We then produce the NextGen Bio “Class of…,” twenty companies ranked based on several categories, including Finance, Collaborations, Pipeline, and Innovation. The companies were typically launched no more than 18 months before the list was created. We thought it would be insightful to look back at our previous lists to see where some of those companies are today. Here’s a look at the top 3 companies from the Top 20 Life Science Startups to Watch in the U.S. from 2017 . #1. Denali Therapeutics . Based in South San Francisco, Denali Therapeutics was top of our list for 2017. The company originally raised $347 million in venture capital in two rounds from five investors. Early on it developed a series of high-level licensing deals, one with Genentech to develop and commercial LRRK2 inhibitors for Parkinson’s disease, and a research-and-development and licensing deal with Washington University in St. Louis for antibodies for ApoE, associated with Alzheimer’s disease. It also signed an R&D deal with Blaze Bioscience, acquired Incro Pharma for its RIP1 inhibitor program, started a Phase I trial in Europe, and inked partnerships with ALS Therapy Development Institute, Aptuit, Evotech, Massachusetts General Hospital, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, PatientsLikeMe and the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Most recently, on November 19, 2018, Denali announced positive results from a Phase I study of DNL747, an RIPK1 inhibitor being evaluated for Alzheimer’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis. This study was in healthy volunteers to evaluate safety and dosing, as well as to evaluate target engagement measured by a blood-based biomarker of RIPK1 activity. The study is being done in partnership with Sanofi. In October 2018, Denali announced a strategic collaboration for global identification and recruitment of Parkinson’s patients with an LRRK2 mutation with Germany’s Centogene. It also announced this year alone, partnerships with Lonza Pharma and Takeda Pharmaceutical . It closed on its initial public offering (IPO) on December 12, 2017. It raised $250 million and had a market valuation of $1.7 billion. #2. C4 Therapeutics . Founded in 2015 and based in Cambridge, Mass., C4 is developing a new class of targeted protein degradation (TPD) therapeutics for a broad range of diseases. It raised $73 million in Series A financing that included Roche and Novartis, as well as others. It quickly entered into a strategic collaboration deal with Roche to develop novel drugs in the field of TPD, with a potential value of more than $750 million. In March 2017, the company announced a five-year collaboration deal with Calico to discover, develop and market therapies for diseases of aging, including cancer. The companies will leverage C4’s TPD expertise to identify small molecule protein degradation compounds. They will jointly work on preclinical research and Calico will be responsible for subsequent clinical development and commercialization. Calico is a Google/Alphabet company focused, in as much as anyone knows about the company, on aging and longevity. Although not too many details were provided about the deal, FierceBiotech reported that the C4 executive team said it “marries C4T’s drug discovery capabilities in chemistry, biochemistry, ubiquitin proteasome system biology, and pharmacology and Calico’s expertise.” #3. Neon Therapeutics . Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Neon Therapeutics landed on the number three spot in the 2017 class. The company launched in 2015 with a $55 million Series A financing led by Third Rock Ventures and joined by Clal Biotechnology Industries and Access Industries. It completed a $106 million Series B crossover in December 2017, followed by a $70 million Series B in January 2018 with an additional $36 million extension. It rapidly inked licensing agreements with the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital. In December 2015 it began a clinical trial collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb to evaluate NEO-PV-01 and Opdivo (nivolumab), and later signed a collaborative research agreement with the Netherlands Cancer Institute. In May 2018, Neon treated the first patient in a Phase Ib clinical trial of its personal neoantigen vaccine, NEO-PV-01 in combination with Merck’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and chemotherapy in patients with untreated or advanced metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In June of this year, the company launched its IPO to raise $115 million. And in November, the company presented updated data from NT-001, its ongoing Phase Ib trial of NEO-PV-01 at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s (SITC) 33 rd Annual Meeting. At this time the company has three products in Phase I clinical trials, NEO-PV-01, NEO-PTC-01 and NEO-SV-01.