Mineralys, amid signs of thawing IPO market, upsizes offering to raise $192M for race with AstraZeneca

Mineralys, amid signs of thawing IPO market, upsizes offering to raise $192M for race with AstraZeneca

After a long winter, the first signs of spring have brought the return of the lesser spotted upsized biotech IPO. Days after Structure Therapeutics closed its upsized offering, Mineralys Therapeutics has revealed a $192 million haul that positions it to race AstraZeneca to a new uncontrolled hypertension opportunity.

Mineralys filed to test the long-frosty IPO waters last month and updated its paperwork with its targeted offering figures last week. Now, the developer of a high blood pressure drug has revealed the fundraising is going better than expected. Having set out to sell 10 million shares for $14 to $16 each, the biotech is set to shift 12 million shares and hit the top end of its target range.

There could be more to come for Mineralys if it sells the overallotment of 1.8 million shares. Either way, the biotech will exit the IPO with the cash to cruise past upcoming data drops that could send its stock price up a notch.

In the first half of 2023, Mineralys plans to start a phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate its lead candidate, the aldosterone synthase inhibitor lorundrostat, as an add-on drug in patients with uncontrolled or resistant hypertension (uHTN/rHTN). It also expects to kick off another phase 2 trial of lorundrostat for the treatment of uHTN and rHTN in a chronic kidney disease population around the midpoint of the year.

Top-line data from both studies are due in the first half of next year and will shape confidence in a phase 3 program. Mineralys plans to start a phase 3 trial to test lorundrostat in around 1,000 adults in the second half of 2023. With phase 3 results due in mid-2025, the IPO money will run dry before the pivotal data drop, but the phase 2 trials give Mineralys chances to strengthen its hand for further fundraising.

Mineralys will need to pay Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma if the drug makes it to market. Mitsubishi licensed the molecule to the biotech for $1 million upfront in 2020 in a deal that also features up to $9 million in development milestones and up to $155 million in commercial milestones. Mineralys picked up the drug candidate in the belief its inhibition of an enzyme will lower levels of a blood pressure hormone.

Multiple other drug developers have latched onto the same idea. Boehringer Ingelheim has studied the mechanism, and AstraZeneca is entering the space through its $1.8 billion takeover of CinCor Pharma. A phase 2 trial of CinCor’s challenger missed its primary endpoint last year, but AstraZeneca has kept the faith in a candidate that could enter phase 3 around the same time as Mineralys’ lorundrostat.

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