Bicycle Therapeutics plans $200m public offering

NASDAQ-listed Bicycle Therapeutics has announced that $200m worth of shares will be available at a price of $21.25 each.

The company, which has offices in the UK and US, expects the underwritten public offering to close around 17 July. On 13 July, more than 12 times the volume of shares were traded on the exchange, compared to the previous day. The underwriters will also have the option to purchase a further $30m of shares in a 30-day period.

The company has recently signed two lucrative deals with Novartis and Bayer for the use of its peptide technology to develop radio-conjugates. In March, Novartis paid an upfront sum of $50m, and a possible $1.7bn in milestone payments. Bayer then followed suit in May, with a $45m upfront deal, with a possibility of a further $1.7bn. Both partnerships involve undisclosed oncology targets.

The company reported net losses of $39m in Q1 2023 as it invested significant funds into the research and development of its oncology pipeline. It recently announced positive results from a Phase I/II study of lead candidate BT8009, which was granted Fast Track designation for treating advanced urothelial cancer by the US Food and Drug Administration in January 2023. Bicycle Therapeutics also has toxin conjugate and tumour-targeted immune cell agonist programmes as part of its pipeline.

“In addition [to announcing BT8009 results], we entered into multiple research and development collaborations with organizations at the forefront of the development of radiopharmaceuticals to develop Bicycle radio-conjugates (BRCs),” said Bicycle Therapeutics’ CEO Dr Kevin Lee in a statement announcing its Q1 results in May.

“These collaborations provide further validation of our platform and enable us to advance a broad pipeline of partnered and wholly owned BRCs.”