Talaris Raises $150 Million in IPO to Advance Cell Therapy Pipeline

Talaris Therapeutics raised $150 million in an initial public offering to advance a late-stage pipeline of allogeneic cell therapies targeting organ transplantation, and certain severe autoimmune diseases and severe non-malignant blood, immune and metabolic disorders.

The biotech priced 8.8 million shares of common stock at $17.00 per share. The shares will trade on The Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “TALS.” In addition, the underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.3 million shares of common stock at the initial public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.

Talaris is developing an innovative method of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation with the potential to induce durable immune tolerance across a range of indications. It does so by creating chimerism, a state in which both the donor’s HSCs and the recipient’s HSCs co-exist in the recipient’s bone marrow. These co-existing HSCs in turn produce blood and immune cells of both donor and recipient origin. These cells mutually recognize the other as “self,” thereby evading immune-mediated rejection and graft versus host disease (GvHD).

The biotech’s lead experimental candidate, FCR001, is an experimental, allogeneic stem cell therapy with the potential to induce or restore patients’ immune tolerance. FCR001 builds on over 30 years of research by the company’s founder, Suzanne Ildstad, into how durable immune tolerance can be induced in a patient who receives a transplanted organ or can be restored in patients with certain immune-mediated or blood disorders.

FCR001 is currently being studied in an ongoing phase 3 trial in living donor kidney transplant recipients. It is also in studies to treat diffuse systemic sclerosis, a severe form of the rare autoimmune disease scleroderma. Talaris has received both Orphan Drug and Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for FCR001.

Author: Rare Daily Staff