Alphamab Oncology Raises $234 Million in Hong Kong IPO, Climbs 35% in First Trading Session

Alphamab Oncology (HKEX: 9966) has raised HK$1.83 billion (approximately US$234 million) initial public offering (IPO) on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited. The company traded 35% higher from its offering price to a market cap of $1.2 billion. 

Morgan Stanley Asia Limited, CLSA Capital Markets Limited, and Jefferies Hong Kong Limited are the joint sponsors in this transaction. The money raised will mainly be used for the development of key products.

In addition, Sidley also advised Alphamab Oncology on its Series A and Series B pre-IPO financings in December 2018 and May 2019 respectively.

Alphamab Oncology is a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in China with a fully integrated proprietary biologics platform in biospecifics and protein engineering, especially the two multi-functional antibody platforms, CRIB platform and CRAM platform.

The CRIB (Charge Repulsion Improved Bispecific) platform is for bispecific antibody. The yield of heterodimer from bi-specific antibody molecules based on CRIB platform is greater than 98%, while having no significant difference from wild-type antibodies in terms of thermal stability and Fc portions.

The CRIM (Charge Repulsion induced Antibody Mixture) platform is for a mixture of antibody. It can produce different antibody molecules by a single cell clone, making the whole CMC development process no more complex and controllable than the production of a single antibody.

Alphamab Oncology has a PD-L1 candidate that could be approved in China next year and two bispecifics - KN046 (PD-L1/CTLA4) and KN026 (HER2) - in Phase II tests. It has eight biologics in development. About half of the proceeds will be used to support the clinical development of KN046 for various solid tumors. Alphamab Oncology was spun out from Alphamab last year.