Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have been at the center of many a billion-dollar biobuck licensing deal over the last year, but Bivictrix Therapeutics feels like it’s been missing out.
The preclinical company—which is currently listed on the U.K.’s ailing AIM stock exchange—is keen to get its lead bispecific candidate BVX001 into human trials, but currently has just 1.7 million pounds sterling ($2.2 million) to its name. After mulling its options, the biotech’s leadership has decided the best way to raise fresh funds is to go private.
Bivictrix said it has already had “positive initial interactions” with the FDA about moving BVX001, a CD7xCD33 candidate for acute myeloid leukemia, into the clinic. Now, it requires “significant funds to be able to proceed.”
“In comparison to private companies operating in the ADC space, the directors believe the current market capitalisation of the company neither fully reflects the positive achievements nor the underlying prospects of the business and is a barrier to future growth, funding and potential partnership and licensing discussions,” Bivictrix said in an Aug. 12 release.
The company name-checked fellow U.K.-based ADC company Myricx Bio, which last month raised 90 million pounds ($114 million) in a series A round to take its own candidates into the clinic as illustrating “the appetite for major investors to invest in this area.”
The current levels of liquidity available from trading the company’s shares on AIM “do not, in itself, offer investors the opportunity to trade in meaningful volumes or with frequency within an active market,” Bivictrix explained.
“Whilst there is no guarantee that cancellation and re-registration will lead to the company successfully completing a significant fundraise or licensing deal, the directors believe its prospects of such a transaction will be significantly increased as a private company,” Bivictrix said.
Bivictrix will be following a well-worn path of biotechs like Destiny Pharma as well as other companies that are fleeing AIM, a junior exchange to the London Stock Exchange, citing a desire to raise money elsewhere or the cost of listing requirements.
Bivictrix joined AIM almost exactly three years ago, raising 7.5 million pounds ($9.5 million) from an IPO that saw the company list its shares for 20 pence apiece. The company has lost 35% of its value in the following years, trading at 13 pence on Friday.
Shareholders will be asked to vote on the plan to go private at a meeting at the end of the month.