NEW YORK – Evaxion Biotech on Wednesday said it has signed a financing agreement with Global Growth Holding for up to $20 million to cover its working capital needs including an ongoing Phase II clinical trial of its personalized cancer vaccine EVX-01 with Merck's Keytruda (pembrolizumab) as a treatment for advanced melanoma.
The financing will be available in tranches of up to $700,000 over a 36-month period, which Evaxion may execute at its discretion subject to certain times and conditions. It will take the form of convertible bonds that carry a zero coupon and will be issued at a subscription price determined as 83.5 percent of the second-lowest closing volume weighted average share price of at least eight trading days prior to issuance of each conversion request by Global Growth Holding.
If Evaxion fully exercises the convertible notes, it will have sufficient funds for all of its planned activities into the fourth quarter of 2024.
EVX-01 comprises multiple peptides, each representing a T-cell epitope on the patient's tumor and specific to that patient's human leukocyte antigen type. Evaxion uses Personalis' immune profiling platform to identify the epitopes via high-throughput analysis of tumor genomic data generated by next-generation sequencing.
In the ongoing Phase IIb trial, the Horsholm, Denmark-based company is seeking to establish safety and efficacy of EVX-01. Under the trial protocol, patients with advanced melanoma receive Keytruda and standard-of-care therapy for 12 weeks, then begin immunization with EVX-01 at week 12 with 10 doses over a period of several months. The primary outcome measure of the trial is best overall response, and secondary outcome measures include changes in overall response rate, progression-free survival, and overall survival. The company plans to report interim results from the trial in Q4 2023.
The funds will also support studies of Evaxion's preclinical personalized vaccine candidate EVX-03 in preparation for a planned Phase I clinical trial in lung cancer and solid tumors.
In Wednesday morning trade on the Nasdaq, shares of Evaxion were down around 3 percent at $1.22.