NEW YORK – Aptose Biosciences on Thursday said it has entered into a common share purchase agreement with an institutional investor, which it expects will bring in around $2.1 million in gross proceeds.
The Toronto-based firm entered into a committed equity facility agreement that gives it the right to sell and issue up to $25 million of its common shares over the course of 24 months to investor Keystone Capital Partners, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm will offer up to 12,030,218 common shares for Keystone to resell.
Aptose agreed to issue 240,604 common shares to Keystone to support its commitment to the agreement, which will be issued to Keystone in three parts over six months. The firm will also pay Keystone up to $25,000 for its expenses. Under the agreement, Aptose may also direct Keystone to purchase up to 50,000 common shares at its discretion, as long as its share price is not below $.05.
While the firm expects to receive approximately $2.1 million in gross proceeds from the purchase agreement, it will not receive proceeds from the resale of common shares by Keystone.
The firm also entered into an agreement to issue and sell common shares through at-the-market distributions on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The firm will decide the timing, price, and number of shares sold and will sell the shares through its agent Alliance Global Partners, according to a separate filing with the SEC. The sale of the common shares has an aggregate offering price of up to $1 million.
Aptose is developing two treatments for blood cancers: the myeloid kinase inhibitor tuspetinib and the dual lymphoid and myeloid kinase inhibitor luxeptinib. Tuspetinib, which targets FLT3, SYK, JAK1/2, and mutant forms of KIT, is undergoing testing with azacitidine and AbbVie and Genentech's Venclexta (venetoclax) in a Phase I/II trial in newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia and as a monotherapy in relapsed or refractory AML harboring TP53 or FLT3 mutations in another Phase I/II trial. The firm is also studying tuspetinib within the National Cancer Institute's myeloMATCH umbrella trial.
Last year, Aptose raised $8.4 million in a public offering alongside $4 million from a private placement with Korean pharma company Hanmi Pharmaceutical.