After banking $72 million at the start of the year, Werewolf Therapeutics now wants an IPO.
The early-stage biotech is working on shape-shifting cytokine drugs, i.e., ones that deliver the promise of cytokines without their nasty side effects. Known as Indukines, Werewolf’s candidates are “switched off” when they’re given to patients and activate only when they arrive in cancer cells.
Cytokines, such as interleukin-2, emerged decades ago as promising cancer treatments. But they evolved as signaling molecules and not as drugs, so it’s no surprise that they’re missing some key pharmaceutical features that would make them good medicines.
“These mechanisms are a very powerful way to stimulate the immune system to attack tumors, but unfortunately, a number of cytokines can activate the immune system in an adverse way where it can attack normal tissues,” Werewolf CEO Daniel Hicklin, Ph.D., said in January. Werewolf’s protein engineering technology is designed to limit its drugs’ effects on healthy tissues.
The biotech, which is preclinical but wants the cash to chase these drugs into the clinic, got off a $72 million raise in January just over a year after it nabbed $56 million series A back in November 2019. Now, according to its SEC-1 filing, it wants a $100 million IPO, though don’t be surprised if, like so many other biotechs over the past year, it ends up getting more than that.
Its two leading assets, WTX-124 and WTX-330, are seeking INDs with the FDA from next year, according to its filing, after which it plans to conduct phase 1/1b trials in patients with multiple tumor types both as standalone treatments and in combination with an immune checkpoint inhibitor.
It also has a third asset, WTX-613, which is much further back in the pipeline, with clinical trials not slated until 2023. This drug is designed to be a systemically delivered, conditionally activated interferon alpha, or IFN-a, molecule for the treatment of solid tumors and blood cancers.
Other players hoping to make better cytokines for cancer treatment include Synthekine, which launched in September with $82 million, and Bright Peak Therapeutics, which debuted in July with $35 million.
And Sanofi bet big on the approach in December 2019 when it inked a $2.5 billion deal to acquire Synthorx, with some early data dropping this weekend at the American Association for Cancer Research.
Appropriately enough, the biotech is seeking to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “HOWL.”