Pyxis Oncology (NASDAQ:PYXS) agreed to acquire Apexigen (NASDAQ:APGN) in an all-stock transaction for an implied value of 64 cents per Apexigen share. For each share of Apexigen, Pyxis Oncology will issue 0.1725 shares of its common stock for a total enterprise value of approximately $16-million.
“This acquisition uniquely positions Pyxis Oncology at the forefront of antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) innovation by adding humanized antibody generation to our Flexible Antibody Conjugation Technology ADC toolkit acquired from Pfizer,” Lara Sullivan, M.D., president and CEO of Pyxis, said in a statement.
The transaction also expands Pyxis’ clinical pipeline into Phase 2 in select solid tumor types “by leveraging our founding heritage of immuno-oncology expertise—all while maintaining our cash runway into 2025,” she added.
Apexigen’s sotigalimab is a CD40 agonist that has demonstrated clear anti-cancer activity in patients who previously progressed on PD-(L)1 inhibitors, with impressive, durable remissions.
Sotigalimab has been evaluated in more than 500 patients in clinical trials and demonstrated strong activity, including rapid, deep and durable responses and a favorable tolerability profile, across multiple difficult-to-treat tumor types.
