Amid a flurry of traditional IPOs this year, Talawar Therapeutics is taking a less-trodden path to the public markets.
The immunology and inflammatory disease biotech is merging with a special purpose acquisition company called JATT II Acquisition, which itself raised $60 million in an IPO in April. The combined company will operate under the Talawar brand and will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker “TLWR.”
Alongside the planned merger, Talawar also announced an oversubscribed $225 million concurrent private investment in public equity. The funding was led by Access Biotechnology with participation from Bain Capital Life Sciences, Deep Track Capital, RA Capital Management, Janus Henderson Investors, Vianti Capital, Farallon Capital Management and other investors.
Talawar is the first company to spin out of London, U.K.-based “biotech builder” Khanda Therapeutics, which aims to translate research into drug developers. The merger between Talawar and JATT is expected to close in the second half of this year, with the combined company expected to receive $285 million from JATT’s IPO and Talawar’s financing.
The cash will support Talawar's lead preclinical asset, TALA-125, an anti-IL-13 and anti-IL-18 bispecific antibody for atopic dermatitis. The biotech expects to take the therapy into the clinic in the first quarter of next year, with a phase 2b proof-of-concept data readout pencilled in for the second half of 2028.
Atopic dermatitis is the most common form of eczema and is characterized by dry, scaly and intensely itchy skin prone to flare-ups and remissions. IL-13 drugs lead the market in the form of Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent and Eli Lilly’s Ebglyss, alongside JAK inhibitors like AbbVie's Rinvoq.
Last week, AbbVie made a $10.9 billion move to buy Apogee Therapeutics to take control of zumilokibart, another anti-IL-13 antibody that has impressed analysts and investors in recent phase 2 updates and could challenge Ebglyss and Dupixent.
Talawar CEO Marc Schegerin, M.D., told Fierce in an interview that the activity around the indication is an encouragement for the work they are doing.
“We believe the Apogee acquisition validates the thesis we are building on,” said Schegerin, who previously served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer at immunology-focused Morphic Therapeutics, which was bought by Lilly. “From our perspective, it confirms enormous value is being placed on differentiated, next-generation biologics in atopic dermatitis, and that there is room for multiple winners in this market.”
The CEO pointed to the “fundamentally different paradigm” being explored with TALA-125. The asset “combines potentially best-in-class IL-13 inhibition with differentiated IL-18 inhibition in a single bispecific molecule—targeting two validated, complementary mechanisms to shatter the monotherapy efficacy plateau,” Schegerin added.
TALA-125 is expected to produce interim phase 1 data by the end of next year, and Talawar is also developing two discovery-stage assets, TALA-307 and TALA-711, in additional immunology indications.
“Khanda's discovery engine designed and optimized TALA-125, providing Talawar with a lead asset addressing de-risked targets built on deep expertise in antibody engineering and orthogonal biology,” Schegerin said. “This relationship gave Talawar a head start: a molecule with potential best-in-class developability, validated half-life extension, and novel composition of matter IP beyond 2045, all ready for clinical advancement.”
Biotech SPAC deals have become increasingly rare since their peak in 2022, although stem cell company PrimeGen went public on the Nasdaq via a SPAC in February.
Schegerin said that speed and certainty were a major factor when deciding to take the SPAC route rather than a traditional IPO.
“Given our clinical timeline, with interim phase 1 data expected in the fourth quarter of 2027, it was critical to have a well-funded path to those milestones without the timing and execution risk inherent in a traditional IPO process,” the CEO explained.