On October 30, 2020 SQZ Biotech, reported that it raised $71 million in its New York Stock Exchange debut (Press release, FierceBiotech, OCT 30, 2020, View Source [SID1234569581]).

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"We didn’t feel bound by convention by how we thought about the exchanges," SQZ CEO Armon Sharei, Ph.D., said. "Generally, people go to Nasdaq, but we really tried to take a close look at both."

Various factors went into the company’s decision, Sharei said. The IPO comes about a year after the NYSE cut its listing fees, giving companies with little to no revenue—hello, develop-stage biotech—a 75% discount.

Financing isn’t the only place where SQZ is going its own way. The IPO proceeds will bankroll a pipeline of cell therapies based on a platform that squeezes cells through a microfluidic chip, disrupting their membranes to get materials into them. It’s working on treatments for various cancers and recently expanded into infectious diseases.

RELATED: SQZ Biotech snags $65M to push cancer vaccine, break into infectious disease

In cancer treatments, this means engineering patients’ immune cells to present tumor antigens to CD8+, or killer, T cells. In theory, the T cells would then hunt down cancer cells that express the target antigen.

"We feel we have solved some fundamental problems in the cell therapy space and can create cell therapies that people couldn’t in the past," Sharei said. "Not only are they more impactful across a broader patient set, but they’re also safer and more practical."

Roche bought into the idea early, inking a partnership worth up to $500 million in 2015 and doubling down three years later with a deal expansion worth $125 million upfront but that could net SQZ more than $1 billion if it meets certain development goals. The alliance covers cancer programs using SQZ’s antigen-presenting cells (APCs), including its lead program, SQZ-PBMC-HPV, a treatment for HPV-positive solid tumors that entered phase 1 (PDF) in January. The study is testing the treatment on its own and in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor.

"What’s been exciting this year is that SQZ is starting to show just how different a cell therapy we can create relative to what’s been done before," Sharei said.

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For the phase 1 study, the company is making cell therapies from patients’ cells in 24 hours, much faster than the two to three weeks these treatments typically take to manufacture. What’s more, the treatments do not require "pre-conditioning"—a treatment used to clear a path for cell therapies to work but that tends to suppress the immune system—or hospitalization, making them easier for patients to handle.

The IPO proceeds will also bankroll IND-enabling studies for infectious disease programs using the same APC technology as SQZ-PBMC-HPV, starting with hepatitis B, the company said in a securities filing. And it will support the development of treatments based on SQZ’s other technologies, namely cancer treatments using its activating antigen carriers platform and immune tolerance indications, such as Type 1 diabetes, using its tolerizing antigen carriers.

Although SQZ has already ramped up the manufacturing speed of its cell therapies, it aims to go even faster by developing a point-of-care system that can be placed in hospitals.

"Cell therapies are so much more than what they are today, and I think because of the constraints of existing therapies, people have forgotten what a cell therapy could be, rather than what it is," Sharei said. "Our goal is to take them from where they are to where they should be … If we can bring them to the point of care, we can turn cell therapy into something a patient can walk into a hospital, get treated that day and walk back out."

On October 30, 2020 Tikcro Technologies Ltd. (OTCQB: TIKRF) reported its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020 (Press release, Tikcro, OCT 30, 2020, View Source [SID1234569557]).

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"We reduced our operating expenses and continue to consider businesses for a reverse merger and other corporate alternatives, said Aviv Boim, CEO of Tikcro.

Financial Results for the Second Quarter Ended June 30, 2020

Net loss for the second quarter of 2020 was $96,000, or $0.01 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $248,000, or $0.03 per diluted share, for the same period last year.

As of June 30, 2020, the company reported $4.2 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term bank deposits.

Net loss for the six months ended June 30, 2020 was $192,000, or $0.02 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $519,000, or $0.05 per diluted share, for the six months ended June 30, 2019.

On October 30, 2020 Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ: EVGN), (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company focused on revolutionizing product discovery and development in multiple life-science based industries, including human health and agriculture, reported that it has entered into definitive agreements with an existing institutional shareholder and certain Israeli institutional investors in connection with a registered direct offering, providing for the issuance of an aggregate of (i) 3.92 million ordinary shares at a purchase price of $2.50 per share, and (ii) 883,534 pre-funded warrants each to purchase one ordinary share ("Pre-Funded Warrants") (Press release, Evogene, OCT 30, 2020, View Source [SID1234569556]). The Pre-Funded Warrants will be sold at a price of $2.49 each, with an exercise price of $0.01 per ordinary share. The Pre-Funded Warrants will be exercisable at any time after the date of issuance upon payment of the exercise price.

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The offering is expected to result in gross proceeds of $12 million. Evogene intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to further develop its and its subsidiaries’ product pipelines, to further enhance and expand its computational predictive biology platform, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

The offering is expected to close on or before November 3, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. is acting as placement agent in the offering.

The ordinary shares and Pre-Funded Warrants offered in the registered direct offering described above are being offered by Evogene pursuant to its shelf registration statement on Form F-3 (File No.333-240249) previously filed and declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on August 10, 2020. The offering may be made only by means of a prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus. A prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to the offering will be filed with the SEC and will be available on the SEC’s website at View Source

This press release is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor will there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

On October 30, 2020 Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRTX) reported the closing of its previously announced underwritten public offering of 4,985,706 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $202.00 per share, which consists of 4,585,706 shares sold by Mirati and 400,000 shares sold by a selling stockholder (Press release, Mirati, OCT 30, 2020, View Source [SID1234569530]). This includes the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase up to 625,309 additional shares of common stock from Mirati and up to 25,000 additional shares of common stock from the selling stockholder. The aggregate gross proceeds to Mirati from this offering were approximately $926.3 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by Mirati.

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Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, SVB Leerink LLC, Cowen and Company, LLC and Evercore Group, L.L.C. acted as joint book-running managers in the offering. Barclays Capital Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Piper Sandler & Co. also acted as book-running managers in the offering.

The shares of common stock described above were offered by Mirati pursuant to a shelf registration statement filed by Mirati with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") that became automatically effective upon filing. A final prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to the offering were filed with the SEC and are available on the SEC’s website located at View Source Copies of the final prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, or by telephone at (866) 471-2526, or by email at [email protected]; or from SVB Leerink LLC, Attention: Syndicate Department, One Federal Street, 37th Floor, Boston, MA 02110, or by telephone at (800) 808-7525, ext. 6132, or by email at [email protected]; or from Cowen and Company, LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, Attention: Prospectus Department, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or by telephone at (833) 297-2926, or by email at [email protected]; or from Evercore Group, L.L.C., Attention: Equity Capital Markets, 55 East 52nd Street, 35th Floor, New York, NY 10055, or by telephone at (888) 474-0200, or by email at [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.

On October 30, 2020 Genprex, Inc. ("Genprex" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: GNPX), a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing life-changing therapies for patients with cancer and diabetes, reported the launch of new branding for its upcoming oncology clinical trials combining its lead drug candidate, REQORSA (quaratusugene ozeplasmid), with AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso (osimertinib), which received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Fast Track Designation earlier this year, and for the combination of REQORSA with Merck’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab), for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (Press release, Genprex, OCT 30, 2020, View Source [SID1234569525]).

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These trials will use the trial brand "Acclaim," which the Company believes evokes its enthusiasm and the hope these trials represent for NSCLC patients and the oncology community. Acclaim-1 will be used to identify the REQORSA and Tagrisso combination clinical trial, and Acclaim-2 will be used to identify the REQORSA and Keytruda combination clinical trial.

"We are enthusiastically preparing for our upcoming clinical trials and are excited to launch the adoption of this branding," said Rodney Varner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Genprex. "We believe the Acclaim brand communicates our passion for providing hope to NSCLC patients for important new treatment options in the fight against this devastating disease and aligns us with the clinical, medical and patient communities."

The trial brand was developed in order to encourage early exposure of the Company’s clinical programs to the broad audience that Genprex’s business addresses, including patients, healthcare practitioners, clinical investigators, investors, employees and others. Genprex plans to initiate the Acclaim-1 clinical trial and the Acclaim 2 clinical trial in the first-half of 2021. Acclaim-1 is a Phase 1/2 clinical trial using a combination of REQORSA with Tagrisso in patients with late stage NSCLC with mutated epidermal growth factor receptors ("EGFRs") whose disease progressed after treatment with Tagrisso. Acclaim-2 is a Phase 1/2 clinical trial using a combination of REQORSA with Keytruda in NSCLC patients who are low expressors (1 to 49%) of the protein, programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1).