NantKwest (NK) IPO Opens Up 48%

Today's IPO for NantKwest (NASDAQ: NK) opened for trading at $37 after pricing 8,288,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $25 per share, above the expected $20-$23 range. The offering size was raised from 7,000,000 shares.

BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Jefferies LLC and Piper Jaffray are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering, and MLV & Co. LLC is acting as co-manager.

NantKwest is a pioneering, next generation, clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on harnessing the unique power of our immune system using natural killer (NK) cells to treat cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases. NK cells are the body’s first line of defense due to the innate ability of NK cells to rapidly identify and destroy cells under stress, such as cancer or virally-infected cells.

The company's platform's

Direct Killing: aNK Platform. We have developed a unique NK cell which we believe is capable of being produced as a cell-based “off-the-shelf” therapy, with killing potential for cancer and virally-infected cells. Unlike normal NK cells, our NK cells do not express inhibitory receptors, which diseased cells often utilize to turn off the killing function of NK cells. We have developed a unique activated NK, or aNK cell which lacks these inhibitory receptors but retains activation receptors that enable selective targeting and killing of diseased cells. The killing mechanism of our aNK cells is increased compared to normal NK cells by virtue of delivering a larger payload of compounds responsible for the direct killing of diseased cells. We believe our aNK cells can be grown at commercial scale as an on demand, living drug using our proprietary manufacturing and distribution processes.

Safety studies of aNK cells have been conducted in multiple Phase I clinical trials for a variety of bulky hematological cancers and solid tumors enrolling over 40 patients to date, with encouraging evidence of activity and durable remissions. Based on these clinical trials, we plan to develop the therapeutic applications of this aNK platform through molecular engineering of our aNK cells designed to leverage the multiple modes of killing available to aNKs, including antibody-mediated killing, our haNK platform, and antigen targeted killing, our taNK platform, described below.

Antibody-Mediated Killing: haNK Platform. We have genetically modified our aNK cells to incorporate high-affinity CD16 receptors, which bind to antibodies. These high-affinity NK, or haNK, cells are designed to directly bind to externally administered monoclonal antibodies, or mAbs, such as Herceptin, Erbitux and Rituxan and may be able to enhance the cancer killing effect of the externally administered mAbs, enabling targeted cell killing through ADCC. mAbs are prevalently used to treat cancer and generate over $50.0 billion in reported annual sales. We believe, based on currently available information, that only approximately 10% to 20% of the addressable patient population for mAb therapies carry high-affinity CD16 receptors. This implies that our haNK product candidates may have significant market potential as combination therapies to potentially address a large number of patients who have poor responses to mAbs.

Target Activated Killing: taNK Platform. We have genetically modified our aNKs to incorporate chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs, to target specific antigens on the surface of abnormal cells. These target activated Natural Killer, or taNK, cells are designed to directly bind to tumor-specific antigens in multiple bulky hematological cancers and solid tumors and induce cell death by the release of toxic granules directly into the tumor cell, by the release of cytokines and chemokines which recruit additional innate and adaptive immune responses and by the recruitment of cytotoxic T-cells. These tumor-specific antigens can be divided into the following four classes, which can be targeted by our taNK platform: (1) checkpoint inhibitors expressed on the surface of tumor cells such as PDL1; (2) well-established tumor surface antigens such as HER-2, CD33 and ROR1; (3) newly discovered neoepitopes; and (4) novel surface receptors associated with cancer stem cells.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Rubrik IPO: 5 key things to know
• Trident Digital Tech Holdings (TDTH) Announces Downsized 1.8M ADS IPO at $5-$7/sh
• Gauzy (GAUZ) Files for Proposed IPO