NEW YORK – Kura Oncology on Wednesday said it is expecting $150 million in gross proceeds from a private placement of its common stock, and it will use the funds to advance its clinical-stage pipeline and other research programs.
The San Diego-based company is planning to sell 1,376,813 shares of its common stock at $17.25 per share, which represents a 29 percent premium over Kura's closing stock price on Jan. 23. Kura is also selling investors pre-funded warrants they can use to purchase 7,318,886 shares of its common stock at $17.2499 per pre-funded warrant. The exercise price for the pre-funded warrants is $.0001 per share.
Existing institutional investors, including EcoR1 Capital, an affiliate of Deerfield Management, and Suvretta Capital, are participating in the private placement, which is slated to close on Jan. 26. Leerink Partners is the sole placement agent.
Kura said it will use the proceeds from this private placement to move forward its clinical-stage products and fund general corporate expenses. The firm is advancing its menin inhibitor ziftomenib in a Phase II trial in patients with NPM1-mutated relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia. In a Phase I trial, the company reported that 30 percent of patients that received the drug achieved a complete response.
The company is also testing ziftomenib in a Phase I trial in patients with NPM1-mutated and KMT2A-rearranged AML. Kura's pipeline also includes a farnesyl transferase inhibitor, tipifarnib, which it is evaluating in combination with Novartis' PI3K inhibitor Piqray (alpelisib) in a Phase I/II trial in patients with PIK3CA-dependent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Kura expects that the funds from this financing and current cash, cash equivalents, and investments will fund operations into 2027.