ARCH Venture Partners is the big name behind Boundless Bio Inc. (BOLD Proposed), a Phase 1 cancer biotech that filed plans for a $100 million IPO on Wednesday (March 6, 2024) after the closing bell. The S-1 filing did not disclose terms for the IPO. This is a NASDAQ listing.
Boundless Bio was founded in 2018 by ARCH Venture Partners and Paul Mischel, M.D., a Stanford professor who is internationally recognized for his expertise in extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA), the prospectus says. Dr. Mischel, the vice chair of research and a professor of pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is the chairman of Boundless Bio’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Goldman Sachs, Leerink Partners, Piper Sandler and Guggenheim Securities are the joint book-runners.
Extrachromosomal DNA – known as ecDNA – is “a root cause of oncogene amplification observed in more than 14 percent of cancer patients,” the prospectus says. An example of an oncogene is the HER2 oncogene found in some breast cancer and ovarian cancer cells, according to the City of Hope website.
Boundless Bio, based in San Diego, says in the prospectus: “ecDNA are large circular units of nuclear DNA that are a primary mechanism of gene amplification and, like oncogene amplifications, are detected only in cancer cells, not in healthy cells.”
In the prospectus, Boundless Bio says that “we are, to our knowledge, the first company formed to develop new cancer medicines directed at ecDNA and the only company to date to bring an ecDTx into the clinic to treat cancer patients.” The California clinical biotech says that “we consider ourselves to be the world’s leading ecDNA company.”
The Phase 1 biotech is developing small molecule drugs called ecDTx that are “designed to preferentially kill ecDNA-bearing cancer cells, but not healthy cells without ecDNA,” Boundless Bio says in the prospectus.
Boundless Bio’s lead ecDTx candidate, known as BBI-355, is “a novel, oral, selective inhibitor of checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1), which manages ecDNA replication and transcription in cancer cells,” the prospectus says.
This lead ecDTX drug candidate, BBI-355, is being studied in a first-in-human Phase 1/2 clinical trial called POTENTIATE with clinical trial results expected in the second half of 2024, according to Boundless Bio’s prospectus. The company has two other ecDNA drug candidate programs, the S-1 filing says.
Boundless Bio is typical of most Phase 1 biotechs in that it has a history of net losses and no revenue from product sales, according to the prospectus.
For the year ended Dec. 31, 2023, Boundless Bio reported a net loss of $49.43 million on no product revenue, the prospectus says.
(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Calendar and the individual IPO Profiles found on our website: IPOScoop.com )
Note: Never trade on proposed symbols. They have been known to change and you might buy something on the OTC Bulletin Board.
To see what time the NASDAQ IPOs are expected to trade, please log in to: NASDAQTrader.com then scroll down to IPO Message.
Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.
Disclaimer: A SCOOP Rating (Wall Street Consensus of Opening-day Premiums) is a general consensus taken, at press time, from Wall Street and investment professionals concerning how well an IPO might perform when it starts trading. The SCOOP Rating does not reflect the opinions of anyone associated with IPOScoop.com. The SCOOP ratings should not be taken as investment advice. The rating merely reflects the opinion of the professionals at the time of publication and is subject to last-minute changes due to market conditions, changes in a specific offering and other factors, such as changes in the proposed offering terms and the shifting of investor interest in the IPO. The information offered is taken from sources we believe to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy.