NEW YORK – Aprea Therapeutics on Monday said it has inked a securities purchase agreement with investors to raise up to $34 million, which it plans to use to develop the WEE1 inhibitor APR-1051 and ATR inhibitor ATRN-119.
Sphera Healthcare is leading the financing. Nantahala Capital, DAFNA Capital Management, Exome Asset Management, Stonepine Capital Management, and other new and existing investors as well as company insiders are participating in the financing.
Under the financing agreement, Aprea will issue an aggregate of 2,194,788 shares of its common stock and accompanying warrants that allow for the purchase of the same number of shares of common stock at a combined purchase price of $7.29 per share and accompanying warrants.
The accompanying warrants will be issued in two tranches. In tranche A, investors can buy warrants to purchase up to 1,097,394 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $7.29 per share, and in tranche B, investors can buy warrants to purchase up to 1,097,394 shares of common stock at about $9.11 per share. Of the $34 million Aprea is expecting to raise in gross proceeds, the firm will receive $16 million up front and up to $18 million once the accompanying warrants are exercised.
"This meaningful financing led by high-quality healthcare institutions will support Aprea in our goal to be a leader in the field of synthetic lethality and DNA damage and response," Aprea CEO and President Oren Gilad said in a statement. The financing will provide capital to fund a Phase I clinical trial of APR-1051 and continue patient enrollment in an ongoing Phase I/IIa trial of ATRN-119.
Maxim Group is the placement agent for the private placement, which is slated to close around March 13. Aprea expects the net proceeds from the financing to fund operations into 2026.
In a separate announcement, Doyleston, Pennsylvania-based Aprea said the US Food and Drug Administration has cleared its application to proceed with a Phase I trial of APR-1051. The firm believes that the high selectivity and limited off-target toxicity of APR-1051 differentiate it from competing investigational WEE1 inhibitors, such as AstraZeneca's adavosertib and Zentalis' ZN-c3.
Aprea expects to begin enrolling patients into the ACESOT-1051 trial in the first half of the year and provide an update in Q4. In the trial, Aprea researchers will evaluate APR-1051's safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary efficacy in patients with advanced solid tumors that overexpress cyclin E, which is associated with resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy.
ATRN-119, Aprea's most advanced program, is undergoing testing in a Phase I/IIa clinical trial involving patients with advanced solid tumors bearing mutations in DNA damage repair-related genes. In February, Aprea also received about $2 million in funding from the National Cancer Institute to advance development of DNA damage response inhibitors for treating ovarian cancers harboring homologous recombination repair gene mutations.