This week's look at the Philadelphia region's life sciences industry includes a public stock sale, a private stock sale, a multimillion-dollar research grant and more. Here's the rundown:
Onconova
The Bucks County-based biopharmaceutical company raised $21 million in a public stock offering.
Onconova (NASDAQ: ONTX) of Newtown sold 5 million shares of its common stock at $4.20 per share. Underwriters were given a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 750,000 shares of common stock at the public offering price to cover overallotments. If the options are exercised in full, the offering would bring in another $3.8 million.
According to documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Onconova plans to use the proceeds from the offering for "working capital and general corporate purposes."
Onconova, founded in 1998 to develop cancer therapies, is still a clinical-stage company in pursuit of its first Food and Drug Administration-approved product. Its most advanced drug candidate under development, oral rigosertib, is in mid-stage clinical testing as a potential treatment for non-small-cell lung cancer.
Waypoint Orthopedics
The Malvern-based spinal instrumentation company closed a $1.7 million financing round.
The Series B round was led by Runway Healthcare. Existing investor Alere Financial Partners also participated.
The company plans to use proceeds from the financing to complete the product development and pursue regulatory approval for its flagship product: the Waypoint GPS. The Waypoint guided pedicle system is designed to enable physicians to see the color of the bone as they traverse through the pedicle — the hard bone that sticks out from the back part of the vertebrae — prior to screw placement in order to make vertebral fixation procedures safer and more efficient.
"We want to give physicians a better tool," said Dr. Stephen P. Banco, co-founder of Waypoint Orthopedics.
Kannalife Sciences
The Doylestown biopharmaceutical company was awarded a $2.97 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Kannalife is a wholly owned subsidiary of Neuropathix Inc. (OTCQB: NPTX), a pain management life sciences company. Both Kannalife and Neuropathix are based at the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County.
The three-year grant is funded through the NIH HEAL (Helping End Addiction Long-term) Initiative to develop therapies and technologies directed at enhanced pain management.
Kannalife plans to use the proceeds to advance the development of its new drug candidate, KLS-13019, targeting neuropathic pain. The company is developing the therapy in a partnership with researchers at Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine.
"Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a real problem worldwide, and a window into what real unmet needs are in treating chronic and neuropathic pain, as well as reducing the use of opioids [to treat neuropathy] and many other inflammatory pain related diseases and disorders," said Dean Petkanas, CEO of Neuropathix. "These critical resources will allow us to do the necessary research for a potential future investigation new drug filing with the FDA."
New hires
Malvern medical device company Tela Bio (NASDAQ: TELA) expanded its senior management team with the addition of Roberto Cuca as its new chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Cuca was previously CFO of OraSure Technologies, a point-of-care testing and sample collection technologies company based in Bethlehem. Before that, he was senior vice president and CFO of Trevena in Chesterbrook. … Braeburn, a Plymouth Meeting pharmaceutical company, hired Dr. Joshua Cohen to be its chief medical officer. He previously served as the global medical therapeutic area lead for migraine and headache at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TEVA). … Nabriva Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NBRV) of Fort Washington appointed Dr. Christine Guico-Pabia as chief medical officer. She previously held leadership positions at small startups and large multinational companies including McKesson, Merck, Wyeth, Pfizer and Metagenics.
