Telix Pharmaceuticals, a radiopharma drug and diagnostics maker, has started its march toward a listing on the Nasdaq, submitting its initial pitch to the SEC.
The Melbourne-based biotech, which is already listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, has a commercial imaging agent for prostate cancer, followed up by a few clinical-stage therapies in development for various cancers, including kidney, brain and other rare diseases.
The company plans to use the same ticker $TLX on the US exchange. First-quarter revenues grew 75% year over year, to AUD $175 million (USD $115 million), the company said Friday.
A move onto the US exchange would give the company broader access to biotech investors, it has told shareholders, and a bigger chance to compete against other radiopharmaceutical makers. Its current market cap is about AUD $5 billion (about USD $3.3 billion).
Kevin McCann“We think that there’s a very deep pool of sophisticated investors in this sector who will find it attractive,” Telix chair Kevin McCann said at a shareholder meeting last month, according to a transcript from AlphaSense.
“Now sure, they can buy our shares at the moment, but if you’re on the Nasdaq, you are more visible. I think that’s been demonstrated by a number of relatively small companies being taken over by big pharma who would have been peers of ours,” he said.
Right behind antibody-drug conjugates, the radiopharmaceutical space is oncology R&D’s second-hottest area, with pharma giants in acquisition and building mode.
Novartis, which markets two radiopharmaceuticals, made a $1 billion upfront move for Mariana Oncology this month. Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca have all inked recent billion-dollar-or-bigger acquisitions.
In recent months, Telix has also been acquisitive, though making relatively smaller deals to broaden its manufacturing capabilities and pipeline. The spree includes Texas-based IsoTherapeutics for $8 million upfront and Canadian radioisotope producer ARTMS for $57.5 million in initial payments. It also grabbed QSAM Biosciences, a US-based bone cancer radiopharma startup, for $33.1 million upfront.
Christian BehrenbruchCEO Christian Behrenbruch said the listing could help Telix make additional acquisitions, as “Nasdaq is a much better currency for doing those transactions,” he told shareholders at the meeting last month.
“Just to be clear, we’re not looking at a Nasdaq listing to transform our balance sheet. That’s not the primary objective,” the CEO said.
The biotech said it has yet to determine how many shares it will sell in the offering. It had about $80 million in cash and equivalents at the end of March, per its Friday SEC filing.
Telix said it will use the Nasdaq listing proceeds for its Phase 3 trial of TLX250 in patients with advanced metastatic kidney cancer, which it hopes will serve as a backbone for approval filings. It will also use the money on a Phase 2/3 study of TLX101 in patients with glioblastoma, as well as work on earlier-stage candidates TLX66 and TLX300.