NEW YORK – In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Caribou Biosciences said it is planning a $100 million initial public offering.
The firm hasn't yet priced or set a date for the offering, but said it expects that its new shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol CRBU once the IPO closes. BofA Securities, Citigroup, and SVB Leerink are acting as joint bookrunning managers for the offering.
In its filing, the company said it plans to use the proceeds to advance the clinical development of its CB-010 product candidate; to fund activities for US Food and Drug Administration investigational new drug applications and for the potential initiation of clinical studies for its CB-011 and CB-012 product candidates; and to continue research and development of its iPSC-to-NK platform for solid tumor-targeted cell therapies. The firm also said it would use the funds to advance its genome-editing technologies and conduct discovery-stage research toward potential additional programs; and for working capital and other general corporate purposes.
CB-010 is an allogeneic anti-CD19 CAR-T cell therapy. According to Caribou's website, it's the first allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy with a PD-1 knockout in clinical studies, and it's being evaluated in the ongoing, open-label, multicenter Phase 1 ANTLER clinical trial in the US in adults with relapsed or refractory B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
ANTLER was opened at the end of 2020. The rest of the product candidates are currently in preclinical development.
CB-011 is an allogeneic anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. It is the first allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy immune-cloaked to prevent both T- and NK-mediated immune rejection, Caribou said. CB-012 is an allogeneic anti-CD371 CAR-T cell therapy for the treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia.
On the iPSC-to-NK, or iNK, platform, the company has begun to develop a product labeled CB-020. Caribou is studying the potential of edited iNKs, including CAR-iNKs, for treating a variety of solid tumors, and said it has successfully demonstrated the ability to edit the genome of induced pluripotent stem cells at multiple loci. The company has developed a protocol to derive iNKs from iPSCs, which could help some of the challenges facing immune cell therapies in the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. CB-020's target is currently undisclosed.