Biopharmaceutical company Liminatus Pharma LLC went public recently via a special purpose acquisition company, commonly known as a SPAC.
Liminatus merged with blank check company Iris Acquisition Corp. in April to create a newly combined company called Liminatus Pharma Inc.
“Today is a big day for our company. We are grateful to all participants in this business combination for sharing our vision,” Chief Executive Chris Kim said in an April 30 statement.
It began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “LIMN” on May 1.
Shares opened at $9.15 and within the last month, shot up two-fold to more than $20, hitting a high of $33.66 on June 25. They have since fallen, hovering around $7 a share and a $180 million market cap at press time.
The La Palma-based company is developing immune-modulating cancer therapies under a licensing agreement with South Korean biotech company InnoBation Bio Co. Ltd.
Its current product candidate, an immunotherapy for advanced solid cancers, is in the late pre-clinical stage and will be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for request to conduct a Phase 1 trial this year, according to Liminatus.
Raised $15M in PIPE Financing
The SPAC between Liminatus and Iris has been in the works since 2022 when it was first announced.
The deal was initially expected to close in 2023.
Liminatus raised $15 million via Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) financing, selling 1.5 million shares of common stock at $10 apiece, as well as $25 million in convertible note financing as part of the deal.
The company reported having approximately $12 million in cash and cash equivalents at the time of the combination, according to its 10-K filing.
“This milestone marks the beginning of an exciting journey, and we believe Liminatus is poised to drive transformative impact and innovation in its field,” Iris CEO Sumit Mehta said in a statement.
The newly created company will be led by Kim, who has been CEO of Liminatus since its founding in 2018.
Up until last year, Kim also served as CEO of Philadelphia-based Viral Gene Inc. for eight years.
He has a background in law, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was Counsel for the New York office of Deheng Law, the largest firm in China.
Joining Kim is Scott Dam as chief financial officer and Dr. Byong C. Yoo as chief science officer.
Immunotherapies Licensed from South Korea
The company’s immunotherapies come from South Korean-based InnoBation Bio.
In 2023, Liminatus received the exclusive licensing rights to develop and commercialize InnoBation’s CD47 immune checkpoint inhibitor to treat solid cancers.
Liminatus said it’s cancer therapies “exploit the body’s immune system.”
Immune checkpoint inhibitors don’t kill cancer cells directly but rather helps the immune system better find and attack them. It blocks a certain protein that cancer cells sometime use to evade detection from the immune system.
Limantus’ product candidate is currently in the late preclinical stage, according to the company, and its next step is to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application required for a Phase 1 clinical trial.
Pending approval, it plans to conduct the Phase 1 this year to test the safety of CD47 for advanced solid cancers, as well as a global trial in South Korea that will focus on lung cancer patients.
Liminatus said the company intends to tap into the rapidly growing global cancer immunotherapy market, which it estimates will reach $262 billion by 2030.
Liminatus also licensed two products from Thomas Jefferson University. The portfolio includes CAR-T cell therapy, and a vaccine designed to elicit immune responses against colorectal, pancreatic, gastric and esophageal cancers that express Guanylyl Cyclase C (GCC). Both licenses were terminated August 2024.
Last year, the company decreased R&D investments by $1.1 million to $2.7 million due to decreased spending for clinical trials on the CAR-T therapy and the GCC vaccine.