What does $190 million in R&D spending get you? In the case of Alder Biopharmaceuticals, it got a blockbuster $1.35 billion development deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY) and an in-house migraine drug headed into a Phase IIb study. It also takes the biotech to the threshold of an IPO it detailed today, which is designed to raise $115 million to fund operations through 2015.
The ex-Celltech execs who founded Alder--including CEO Randall Schatzman--like to recall the early days of the company, when they funded start-up operations with their credit cards and borrowed office space. But they are well past that point now. Alder's S-1 states that the biotech has grabbed $103.5 million in its deal with Bristol-Myers, which is planning to wrap a Phase IIb study of its anti-IL-6 drug clazakizumab in rheumatoid arthritis patients in the second half of this year. If it is successful, a late-stage study aimed at putting the company on track to a new first-line anti-inflammatory could start in 2015, which would be worth a $40 million milestone. A total of $746 million in biobucks remains to be earned.
Bristol-Myers and Alder also outlined positive Phase IIb data for clazakizumab in the fall of 2013.
Alder also updated investors on its own in-house work on ALD403 for migraines. The S-1 reveals that Alder is prepping for a Phase IIb trial in the second half of this year. The dose-ranging study is set up as a prelude to a pivotal Phase III in 2016. And success in that field would allow Alder to hire a salesforce of up to 100 reps in the U.S. as it looks for partners to handle the rest of the world.
Ultimately, Alder execs want to create a fully diversified biotech, with commercial sales, partner income and a pipeline of antibodies generated by its platform technology.
The S-1 also offered a glimpse of the results from an early-stage proof-of-concept study of ALD403, which tracked a complete remission of migraines in 16% of patients back in January.
Alder picked a prime time for their IPO. The biotech IPO window was blasted open in the second quarter of last year and continued with an unprecedented number of offerings in the first quarter of 2014. There's been a significant amount of fretting, though, over how long the window will remain open for money-losing biotechs like Alder.
Alder is a 2010 Fierce 15 company.
- here's the S-1
Special Report: 2010 Fierce 15 - Alder Biopharmaceuticals