Watertown, MA-based Tetraphase has joined the queue of biotechs willing to test the tepid IPO waters on Wall Street. The biotech, one of a small group of companies out to develop next-gen antibiotics, believes it can raise $86 million in a new offering.
Tetraphase--a 2010 Fierce 15 company led by Guy Macdonald--launched in 1996 with technology developed at Harvard, where Andrew Myers and his colleagues in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology had opened the door to creating new tetracyclines through synthetic chemistry. Its lead program, Eravacycline (TP-434), is an IV broad spectrum antibiotic, but there's a lot of excitement at Tetraphase about the possibility of creating unique oral antibiotics.
"We recently completed a successful Phase 2 clinical trial of eravacycline with intravenous administration for the treatment of patients with complicated intra-abdominal infections, or cIAI, and are currently finalizing our pivotal Phase 3 program for eravacycline," the company reports in its S-1. "Consistent with recent draft guidance issued by the (FDA) with respect to the development of antibiotics for cIAI and our discussions with the FDA at our end-of-Phase 2 meeting in January 2013, we expect to conduct two global Phase 3 clinical trials of eravacycline, one for the treatment of cIAI and one for the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections, or cUTI. We expect to have top-line data from both of these clinical trials in the first quarter of 2015."
The lead program is backed with a $67 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Another two antibiotics are listed in its pipeline.
- here's the release
- see the S-1
Special Report: Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals - 2010 Fierce 15 | Top 10 biotech IPOs of 2012