Dive briefs:
- Aprinoia Therapeutics, a biotechnology company with a late-stage Alzheimer’s drug, plans to go public through a merger with Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), founded by former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
- The combination of Aprinoia, SPAC and Ross Acquisition Corp II will result in an enterprise value of approximately $320 million called Aprinoia Therapeutics Holdings Ltd. According to Wednesday’s announcement, existing Appnoia shareholders will transfer all of their shares to the new holding company, from his 42% to his 74%.
- The two companies plan to complete the merger in the first half of this year and list their shares on the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange. As part of the transaction, Ross SPAC will issue his $280 million stake. Aprinoia will receive additional capital from Wilbur Ross and other investors in addition to the remaining earnings in the SPAC trust account.
Dive Insight:
SPAC activity is becoming increasingly rare as the market for new biotech stocks slows. White & Case reports that there were just 74 de-SPAC deals in the first nine months of 2022, compared to 161 in the same period in 2021.
Ross, who worked under former President Donald Trump, cited Aprinoia’s work in Alzheimer’s disease as an attractive draw for his acquiring company. Now it’s clear,” Ross said in a release from both companies.
Aprinoia will use the proceeds from this transaction to develop a prospective, experimental drug called APN-1607.
APN-1607 is not an anti-amyloid drug Rekembi Also Aduhelm, two Alzheimer’s drugs recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Experimental treatments act instead on another protein, tau, that accumulates in patients’ brains, Pharmaceutical company and recent researchers. Ross noted that APN-1607 “could complement” drugs like his Leqembi.
The drug is currently being evaluated in Phase 3 clinical trials in China and Phase 2 trials in the United States, Japan and Taiwan for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Aprinoia is also awaiting regulatory approval to initiate a US Phase 3 trial in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy.
Separately, Aprinoia announced that it has licensed the Chinese rights to APN-1607 to a “big pharma” that hopes to bring it to market in China in 2024. As part of the licensing agreement, Aprinoia will be valued at approximately $10 million, subject to future milestone payments and royalties.
