After a long winter, the first signs of spring have brought a smaller patch of big biotech IPOs. Days after Structure Therapeutics closed its expanded bid, Mineralys Therapeutics unveiled $192 million to help it compete with AstraZeneca over a new uncontrolled blood pressure drug.
Mineralys tested the long frozen IPO waters last month and last week updated its articles with targeted delivery numbers.
Now the developer of the high blood pressure drug has revealed that fundraising is going better than expected. After planning to sell 10 million shares at $14-$16, the biotech plans to move 12 million shares and reach the top of its target range.
Mineralys will get more by selling a total of 1.8 million shares. Either way, the biotech is exiting the IPO with cash so it can avoid future data failures that could boost the stock price.
In the first half of 2023, Mineralys plans to initiate a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate its lead candidate, lorundrostat, an aldosterone synthase inhibitor, as an add-on in patients with uncontrolled or resistant hypertension (uHTN/rHTN). It also plans to initiate a second phase 2 study of lorundrostat for the treatment of uHTN and rHTN in the CKD population by mid-year.
Topline data from both studies will be completed in the first half of next year and will build confidence in the Phase 3 program. Mineralys plans to start a Phase 3 trial in the second half of 2023 to test lorundrostat in about 1,000 adults. With Phase 3 results due in mid-2025, the IPO will sell out before major data drops, but the Phase 2 trials give Mineralys an opportunity to strengthen its hand at raising additional capital.
Mineralys must pay Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma when the drug reaches the market. Mitsubishi will license the molecule to the biotech for $1 million in 2020 in a deal that also includes up to $9 million in development milestones and up to $155 million in commercial milestones. Mineralys took the drug candidate in the belief that blocking this enzyme would reduce blood pressure hormone levels.
Several other drug developers took up the same idea. Boehringer Ingelheim has studied this mechanism, and AstraZeneca is entering the space with its $1.8 billion purchase of CinCor Pharma. A Phase 2 trial of CinCor’s challenger did not have a primary endpoint last year, but AstraZeneca kept its faith in the candidate, which could move into Phase 3 around the same time as Mineralys’ lorundrostat.
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