AdAlta Goes Public to Develop Lung Fibrosis Therapy

AdAlta has issued an initial public offering (IPO) on the Australian Stock Exchange to raise AU $10 million (US $7.5 million), to fund clinical studies for AD-114, the company’s leading compound under development for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and other fibrotic disease.

An (IPO) is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public; indicating that the private company has gone public and opening investment to new investors. IPOs are often issued by smaller companies seeking capital to expand.

“The IPO funding will allow AdAlta to develop AD-114 to a point that will be ready for licensing to a major pharmaceutical company,” Sam Cobb, AdAlta CEO, said in a press release. “There is heightened global interest in promising new treatments for fibrosis as well as for the new generations of antibody technologies.”

The company has developed a new technology platform for creating proteins that mimic the shape of shark antibodies, which have been shown to be highly stable. The high stability of AdAlta’s proteins has allowed them to produce unique therapeutic compounds called i-bodies.

According to the AdAlta website: i-bodies have exceptional targeting and antigen binding properties and carry out the functional role of recognizing and binding to other molecules/antigens including disease targets. They are designed to mimic the shape of the antigen binding domain of shark antibodies and their key stability features which are then engineered into a human protein. The i-bodies have a shark-like long binding loop, absent in human antibodies and other next generation antibodies. The  loop and the human protein i-body scaffold form the i-body.

AD-114, the company’s lead compound, has shown promising anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory activity in pre-clinical studies. Phase 1 clinical trials are the next step.

“Proceeds from the offer will be deployed to expedite our first candidate into Phase 1 human clinical trials and extend the technology into other diseases.” said Cobb. “Our strategy is to license this drug candidate on completion of the planned Phase 1 clinical studies proposed in the offer.”

The company has already developed a library containing more than 2 billion i-body protein compounds, which may be used in the future to create new drug candidates for other diseases. AdAlta intends to partner its i-body technology to generate early capital and to licence the drugs developed from i-body proteins based on data from clinical trials.

But, no plans are in the near future to commercialize the drugs; investors will not see returns until at least 10 years.

“We also plan to expand our own internal development pipeline of novel proprietary i-body drug candidates generating sustainable future licensing opportunities.” Cobb said. “In addition, AdAlta intends to license or partner the i-body technology platform for drug discovery with pharmaceutical and biotechnology Companies, with the objective of earning up front, milestone payments and licensing revenues.”