BeyondSpring Pharmaceuticals, a US-headquartered, Cayman Islands-listed cancer therapy developer backed by pharmaceutical company Nereus Pharmaceuticals, filed on Tuesday to raise up to $100m in an initial public offering.
BeyondSpring’s business model involves acquiring and developing pharmaceutical products created by others. It is developing a small-molecule treatment called Plinabulin which will target cancer and chemotherapy-induced conditions.
The proceeds will support phase 1/2, phase 2/3 and phase 3 clinical trials for Plinabulin, which the company acquired from Nereus in 2013.
Nereus holds a 10% stake in BeyondSpring while venture capital firm Sangel Venture Capital owns 9.2%. Co-founders Linqing Jia and Lan Huang own 70.5% of the company, which raised $31.3m from undisclosed investors across rounds in April 2015 and September 2016.
Citigroup Global Markets, Guggenheim Securities, FBR Capital Markets, China Renaissance Securities and Trout Capital have been appointed underwriters for the offering.