TCR2 Therapeutics has filed an S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its initial public offering. No pricing details were mentioned in the filing, although the offering was valued up to $100 million, but this is normally just a placeholder. The company intends to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol TCRR.
The underwriters for the offering are Jefferies, Leerink Partners, BMO Capital Markets, Wedbush PacGrow and China Renaissance.
This is an innovative immunotherapy company developing the next generation of novel T cell therapies for patients suffering from cancer. Its proprietary TCR Fusion Construct T cells (TRuC-T cells) specifically recognize and kill cancer cells by harnessing the entire T cell receptor (TCR) signaling complex, which the firm believes is essential for T cell therapies to be effective in patients with solid tumors.
The company also has designed its TRuC-T cells so that tumor cell recognition does not require human leukocyte antigens (HLA), which provides two important additional benefits. First, in contrast to current engineered T cell therapies that use the full TCR, this technology is designed so that it can be applied to all patients that express the cancer surface antigen irrespective of HLA subtype, which the firm believes will allow it to address a significantly larger patient population. Second, HLA is downregulated or lost in many tumors, which can prevent their recognition by T cells and lead to diminished response rates and higher relapse rates.
As a result, management believes this approach will allow the firm to deliver the first HLA-independent TCR-T cell therapy for patients with solid tumors. It also believes that the product candidates have the potential to improve upon the efficacy and safety of currently approved chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapies in CD19-positive B-cell hematological malignancies. This belief is based on preclinical studies comparing product candidates to CAR-T cells that the firm has engineered.
The company intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to further its pipeline, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes.
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