Big Pharma-backed Aktis Oncology has announced plans to go public, in the latest encouraging sign for those betting on a resurgence in biotech IPOs next year.
Aktis saw the likes of Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck & Co.’s MRL Ventures Fund join previous backer Eli Lilly for the biotech’s $175 million series B last year. The pharma attention was based on Aktis’ platform for delivering alpha emitters to cancer cells using miniproteins, an approach that could potentially destroy tumors without causing intolerable harm to healthy tissues.
In fact, Lilly went even further, handing over $60 million upfront in May 2024 to work on therapeutic and diagnostic products against multiple targets.
While Novartis has established the modern radiopharma field with the beta-emitting drugs Pluvicto and Lutathera, Aktis sees more potent alpha emitters as the future of the sector.
Aktis, which ended September with $246.2 million still in the bank, has yet to set out how many shares it hopes to sell in its Nasdaq IPO or at what price. But the company did explain that a top priority for the proceeds would be funding the ongoing U.S. phase 1b study of the miniprotein radiopharmaceutical Ac-AKY-1189 for Nectin-4 expressing tumors.
Preliminary results from the dose-escalation portion of the study are expected to read out in the first quarter of 2027.
Pfizer and Astellas' Padcev, an antibody-drug conjugate that also targets Nectin-4, brought in worldwide sales of $1.9 billion in 2024, Aktis noted in its filing.
“Despite the commercial success of Padcev, its impact beyond urothelial cancer has been limited likely due to the need to develop a companion diagnostic for tissue testing when utilizing an ADC,” the biotech suggested. “In contrast, we intend to use imaging radioisotopes conjugated to AKY-1189 to select patients most likely to benefit from therapeutic treatment with Ac-AKY-1189.”
A portion of the proceeds will also be used to take its second asset Ac-AKY-2519 into a phase 1b study for B7-H3 expressing tumors, as well as for “working capital and other general corporate purposes,” according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Aktis oversaw 76 full-time employees as of September, who are based across a site in Boston as well as another in Durham, North Carolina.
Following schizophrenia-focused MapLight Therapeutics' $250 million Nasdaq IPO in October and inflammation-focused Evommune's NYSE debut in November, Aktis’ ambition to go public is another sign that industry observers’ predictions to Fierce that the IPO window could reopen in 2026 may come true.