The Life Sciences team guided Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (“Candel” or “the Company”) on its underwritten public offering of 18,348,624 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $5.45 per share. Candel also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,752,293 shares of its common stock on the same terms and conditions. The net proceeds of this offering, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses, will be approximately $93.5 million (or approximately $107.6 million if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full). Candel intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to complete critical launch readiness, medical affairs, pre-commercialization, and commercial activities for aglatimagene besadenovec (CAN-2409 or aglatimagene) in early, localized prostate cancer, ongoing development costs related to the phase 3 trial of aglatimagene in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and for general corporate purposes.
Goodwin also guided Candel on a $100 million royalty funding agreement with funds managed by RTW Investments, LP (RTW), subject to FDA approval of aglatimagene in intermediate- to high-risk, localized prostate cancer. The commercial launch royalty financing will become available upon FDA’s approval of aglatimagene and satisfaction of certain other customary conditions. Under the terms of the agreement, RTW will receive a tiered single-digit percentage of annual net sales of aglatimagene in the US, subject to a cap.
Candel is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing off-the-shelf multimodal biological immunotherapies that elicit an individualized, systemic anti-tumor immune response to help patients fight cancer. Candel has established two clinical-stage multimodal biological immunotherapy platforms based on novel, genetically modified adenovirus and herpes simplex virus (HSV) gene constructs, respectively. Aglatimagene is the lead product candidate from the adenovirus platform. The Company recently completed successful phase 2a clinical trials of aglatimagene in NSCLC and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and a pivotal, placebo-controlled, phase 3 clinical trial of aglatimagene in localized prostate cancer, conducted under a special protocol assessment agreed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA also granted fast track designation and regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation to aglatimagene for the treatment of newly diagnosed, localized prostate cancer in patients with intermediate- to high-risk disease, fast track designation in NSCLC, and both fast track designation and orphan drug designation for the treatment of PDAC.
The Goodwin team for the underwritten public offering was led by Bill Collins, Finnbarr Murphy, Cindy Navarro, Jack Rosen, Kevin Boyle and Julia Shaver, and included Susan Lee, Heath Ingram, Ettore Santucci, Jacqueline Klosek, Duncan A. Greenhalgh, Megan A. Gustafson and Daniel Karelitz.
The Goodwin team for the royalty funding was led by Jacqueline Mercier, Sarah Stoiber, James Barri, Amine Assouad and Fiona Aromando, and included Reid Bagwell, Steven Tjoe, Daniel Karelitz, Matthew Dunay, Duncan A. Greenhalgh, Megan A. Gustafson, and Barry Bazian.
For more information on the deal, please read the public offering press release and the royalty funding press release.