The deal is a blast from the not-too-distant past, when special purpose acquisition companies were an easy way for companies to list on the public market with a bundle of cash to operate on.
Swiss cancer biotech Veraxa is taking the SPAC track to the U.S. public markets via Voyager Acquisition Corp., a deal that will value the ADC drug developer at $1.64 billion.
The deal is a blast from the not-too-distant past, when special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) were an easy way for companies to list on the public market with a bundle of cash to operate on. But the deal structure has fallen out of favor in recent years, with just a few popping up here and there. Most recently, BridgeBio Oncology took a deal with Helix Acquisition Corp. II that was worth $450 million in proceeds.
Veraxa and Voyager will combine to become a publicly traded clinical-stage biotech developing antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and other novel antibody-based therapies, according to a Wednesday release. The combined company will trade under the ticker VERX. Veraxa’s equity contribution will be about $1.3 billion, with Voyager’s assets bringing the total estimated valuation at close to $1.64 billion.
The company is expected to have access to $253 million in cash that is currently being held in a trust by Voyager. At the same time, Veraxa is actively working to raise a crossover round to support its public market debut. The biotech expects this raise to support operations and clinical development for the next two years. The round is expected to close prior to the SPAC transaction, which is anticipated to wrap up in the fourth quarter.
Veraxa has nine programs in development, from discovery through Phase I. The most advanced is an Fc-enhanced therapeutic antibody called VX-A901 that is being tested in Phase I for blood cancers.
Headed by Christoph Antz, Veraxa was formed in December 2020 through the acquisition of two German biotechs, Araxa Biosciences GmbH and Velabs Therapeutics GmbH. The company is a spin-off of Germany’s European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). The resulting company was incubated by Swiss life sciences accelerator Xlife Sciences, which remains a majority shareholder along with the EMBL.
Voyager launched last year with a $253 million IPO to execute a merger in the healthcare sector.
