Duality Biologics has begun (PDF) offering stock, wading into a market reeling from President Donald Trump’s global tariffs in pursuit of up to 1.56 billion Hong Kong dollars ($200 million) to fund its antibody-drug conjugate pipeline. Backers, including BioNTech, have committed around one-third of the targeted IPO haul.
China’s DualityBio filed to go public in Hong Kong last year but let that submission lapse. Having added GSK to a list of partners that already included BioNTech, BeiGene and Adcendo, DualityBio refiled for a Hong Kong IPO earlier this year. The offering began Monday, and, if everything goes to plan, the biotech will have finalized its listing price by this time next week.
The target range positions DualityBio to raise around 1.37 billion Hong Kong dollars ($180 million) after fees. A group of cornerstone investors, including BioNTech, have given DualityBio a boost toward its target by agreeing to collectively cough up $65 million.
DualityBio plans to use 45% of the IPO haul to develop DB-1303 and DB-1311, which the biotech sees as core products. DB-1303 is an ADC aimed at HER2, making it a potential challenger to AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu. Like Enhertu, DB-1303 consists of trastuzumab attached to a topoisomerase I inhibitor, although the linker technologies are different.
DB-1311 is a B7-H3-directed ADC that is in a phase 1/2a solid tumor trial. DualityBio is considering further development in tumor types including prostate and small cell lung cancers. GSK and Merck & Co. are among the other companies aiming ADCs at B7-H3.
BioNTech has rights to DB-1303 and DB-1311 as well as to the TROP2-directed ADC DB-1305. TROP2 is the target of Gilead Sciences' Trodelvy and AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Datroway. DualityBio sees toxicity as a weakness of Trodelvy that creates an opportunity for other ADCs. The biotech is setting aside 30% of its IPO haul for the development of DB-1305 and other ADCs it classifies as key products.
The IPO paperwork reveals DualityBio is in three legal proceedings in China in which a third party alleges ownership rights over certain of its patent applications. The cases relate to molecular structures derived from DualityBio’s technology platforms and used in some ADC candidates, including its core products. DualityBio said it believes the claims are without merit and unlikely to succeed.
The biotech is trying to pull off the IPO at a turbulent time for stock markets. Hong Kong stocks suffered their biggest one-day drop since 1997 on Monday, according to Reuters, with the Hang Seng Index falling 13.2% after China retaliated against the imposition of tariffs by the U.S.