On May 27, 2020 Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARNA) reported that it intends to offer and sell, in an underwritten public offering and subject to market and other conditions, $250,000,000 of its common stock (Press release, Arena Pharmaceuticals, MAY 27, 2020, View Source [SID1234558584]). All of the shares are being offered by Arena . In addition, Arena intends to grant the underwriters of the offering a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the shares of its common stock offered in the public offering. There can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.

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BofA Securities, Citigroup and SVB Leerink are acting as the joint book-running managers for the offering. Credit Suisse and Cantor are also acting as book-running managers for the offering. JMP Securities and Needham & Company are acting as co-managers for the offering.

The shares of common stock described above are being offered by Arena pursuant to a shelf registration statement filed by Arena with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that became automatically effective on February 27, 2020. A preliminary prospectus supplement related to the offering will be filed with the SEC and will be available on the SEC’s website located at View Source Copies of the preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus related to this offering, when available, may be obtained from BofA Securities, NC1-004-03-43, 200 North College Street, 3rd Floor, Charlotte, NC 28255-0001, Attention: Prospectus Department, or by email at [email protected]; or from Citigroup, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or by telephone at (800) 831-9146; or from SVB Leerink, Attention: Syndicate Department, One Federal Street, 37th Floor, Boston, MA 02110, by telephone at (800) 808-7525, ext. 6218, or by email at [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.

On May 27, 2020, CohBar, Inc. (the "Company"), reported that it entered into an At-the-Market Sales Agreement (the "Sales Agreement") with Virtu Americas LLC, as agent ("Virtu"), pursuant to which the Company may offer and sell, from time to time through Virtu, shares of the Company’s common stock, par value $0.001 per share (the "Common Stock"), having an aggregate offering price of up to $20.0 million (the "Shares") (Filing, 8-K, CohBar, MAY 27, 2020, View Source [SID1234558549]).

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The offer and sale of the Shares will be made pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form S-3 and the related prospectus (File No. 333-221724) filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on November 22, 2017 and declared effective by the SEC on December 1, 2017, as supplemented by a prospectus supplement dated May 27, 2020 and filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act").

Pursuant to the Sales Agreement, Virtu may sell the Shares by any method permitted by law deemed to be an "at the market offering" as defined in Rule 415(a)(4) of the Securities Act or any other method permitted by law. Virtu will use commercially reasonable efforts consistent with its normal trading and sales practices to sell the Shares from time to time, based upon instructions from the Company, including any price or size limits or other customary parameters or conditions the Company may impose.

The Company is not obligated to make any sales of the Shares under the Sales Agreement. The offering of Shares pursuant to the Sales Agreement will terminate upon the earliest of (a) the sale of all of the Shares subject to the Sales Agreement or (b) the termination of the Sales Agreement by Virtu or the Company, as permitted therein.

The Company will pay Virtu a commission rate of up to 3.0% of the aggregate gross proceeds from each sale of Shares and have agreed to provide Virtu with customary indemnification and contribution rights. The Company will also reimburse Virtu for certain specified expenses in connection with entering into the Sales Agreement. The Sales Agreement contains customary representations and warranties and conditions to the placements of the Shares pursuant thereto.

The foregoing description of the Sales Agreement is not complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full text of such agreement, a copy of which is filed herewith as Exhibit 1.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference. The opinion of the Company’s counsel regarding the validity of the Shares that will be issued pursuant to the Sales Agreement is also filed herewith as Exhibit 5.1.

This Current Report on Form 8-K shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Common Stock discussed herein, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation, or sale of common stock in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.

On May 27, 2020 AbCellera reported that it has closed a US$105 million Series B financing (Press release, AbCellera, MAY 27, 2020, View Source [SID1234558568]). The financing was led by OrbiMed and current investor DCVC Bio, with an investor syndicate that includes Viking Global Investors, Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Eli Lilly and Company, University of Minnesota, and Presight Capital . With the proceeds of the financing, AbCellera will expand its capacity and invest in technologies that complement and extend its proprietary antibody discovery engine.

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"Drug development takes too long, fails too often, and costs too much. With the backing of visionary investors, we will double-down on our strategy of making long-term investments in technology and teams that are needed to put drug development on the fast track," said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., CEO of AbCellera. "We’re building a modern operating system for drug developers to ensure the best science is translated quickly into new therapies for patients."

AbCellera screens, selects, and analyzes millions of naturally produced antibodies to find next-generation drug candidates. By accelerating the arduous and unpredictable process of antibody drug discovery with rigorous machine learning and data science, AbCellera enhances the entire biologics ecosystem, from small biotechs to global pharmaceutical companies.

"AbCellera has embarked on a long-term project to make it possible to solve biological challenges with the speed and urgency that they all too obviously require," said Peter Thiel, entrepreneur and investor.

"AbCellera is at the intersection of biology, technology, and AI, allowing it to make new antibody drug discovery advancements, which we previously couldn’t dream of, possible," said John Hamer, Managing Partner, DCVC Bio. "From developing therapeutics for neurological diseases to COVID-19 and everything in-between, AbCellera is transforming the antibody discovery process, delivering more possibilities in less time and with less expense. We continue to be enthusiastic supporters of its progress."

AbCellera will use the funds to deepen its technology stack, creating and aggregating novel tools to propel the development of new biological modalities, from monoclonal, multi-specific, and single-domain antibodies, to bioconjugates, gene-encoded biologics, and cell therapies.

The funds will also support the growth of AbCellera’s facilities and teams, including:

Expanding its workforce;
Opening a new 48,000-square-foot R&D facility in 2021; and
Building a GMP manufacturing facility for production of biologics for clinical testing.
AbCellera has successfully completed more than 55 programs, delivering high-quality antibody drug candidates for a wide variety of drug targets, including historically challenging multi-pass membrane protein targets, such as GPCRs and ion channels. The company has generated lead therapeutic antibody candidates for unmet needs in various disease areas including cancer, immuno-oncology, neurodegeneration, pain, fibrosis, and metabolic disorders

On May 27, 2020 Bold Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, reported it has executed an option agreement with an undisclosed publicly traded company for exclusive rights to BOLD-100 in South Korea (Press release, Bold Therapeutics, MAY 27, 2020, View Source [SID1234558585]). BOLD-100 is a first-in-class anti-resistance ruthenium-based small molecule drug which selectively inhibits stress-induced upregulation of GRP78 – an important resistance, survival and proliferation pathway common across cancers. Under the terms of the agreement, Bold Therapeutics and its new partner will collaborate on Bold Therapeutics’ upcoming Phase 1b / 2a adaptive trial in gastric, pancreatic, colorectal and bile duct (cholangiocarinoma) cancers – and explore the potential development of BOLD-100 in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

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"I am pleased to partner with one of the fastest growing and most successful pharmaceutical companies in South Korea on the development of BOLD-100. This collaboration allows us to leverage our partner’s significant oncology development and commercialization expertise in South Korea to accelerate development of BOLD-100," stated E. Russell McAllister, CEO of Bold Therapeutics. "Under this collaboration, we expect to both add clinical sites in South Korea to our planned Phase 1b / 2a adaptive trial by early 2021, potentially accelerating enrollment and the resulting timing of interim efficacy data, as well as add triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an indication where our partner has significant expertise, as a potential development indication – the first of many win-win partnerships."

Jim Pankovich, EVP of Clinical Development at Bold Therapeutics, added, "The quality of clinical data from South Korea is viewed favorably throughout the world. This promising partnership speaks to BOLD-100’s remarkable potential and allows us to generate data in an Asian population earlier than would otherwise have been possible. I look forward to working with our new clinical and regulatory colleagues in the coming weeks."

On May 27, 2020 Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLCM), a leader in developing novel, controllable cellular immunotherapies for cancers, reported the publication of preclinical data from its GoCAR-NK Cell Program in the digital edition of Blood Advances, a journal published by The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (Free ASH Whitepaper) (Press release, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, MAY 27, 2020, View Source [SID1234558624]). The article is titled "Inducible MyD88/CD40 synergizes with IL-15 to enhance antitumor efficacy of CAR-NK cells." Bellicum’s proprietary inducible MyD88/CD40 (iMC) activation switch is incorporated into its GoCAR product candidates. In this study, incorporating iMC into CAR-NK cells was found to improve cell proliferation and persistence, stimulate cytokine production, and enhance innate cytotoxicity against tumor cells in multiple models.

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"We are pleased to see these preclinical data published in Blood Advances," said Rick Fair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bellicum. "These results support our enthusiasm for the application of the GoCAR platform to allogeneic natural killer cells. Based on these findings, we have nominated our first GoCAR-NK program targeting BCMA for preclinical development and expect to present additional data later this year."

Bellicum’s GoCAR-NK platform is designed to address several of the current challenges of allogeneic cell therapy approaches. iMC signaling combined with autocrine IL-15 may enhance engraftment and survival of CAR-NK cells. GoCAR-NK cytokine production may re-ignite a host-derived antitumor response. Further, iMC activation in GoCAR-NK cells enhances both CAR antigen-specific and innate NK cell cytotoxicity, offering the potential for activity against tumor cells with reduced or completely absent target antigen expression. Finally, NK cells have low risk of eliciting graft versus host disease, making them attractive for allogeneic cell therapy.

Allogeneic GoCAR-NK cells may improve the durability of clinical responses while offering the anticipated advantages that an off-the-shelf product may provide, including faster and more certain time to treatment, greater scalability and convenience, and potentially lower cost. Management expects to present additional preclinical data for this program by the end of 2020.