Kura Oncology has filed an S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its initial public offering (IPO). In the filing the company is offering $60 million worth of shares at an expected $16 per share. Assuming an overallotment option of $9 million, then entire offering is valued up to $69 million. The company intends to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol KURA.

The underwriters for the offering are Citigroup, Leerink Partners, JMP Securities and Oppenheimer.

This clinical stage biopharmaceutical company is discovering and developing personalized therapeutics for the treatment of solid tumors and blood cancers. It focuses on the development of small molecule product candidates that target cell signaling pathways that are important to driving the progression of certain cancers. The company aims to employ molecular diagnostics to identify patients with cancers who are likely to benefit from our targeted product candidates.

In the filing, the company said:

We are developing our lead product candidate, tipifarnib, a farnesyl transferase inhibitor, in both solid tumors and blood cancers based on previously generated clinical data, preclinical data and our identification of potential molecular biomarkers. We in-licensed tipifarnib from Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson, in December 2014. We initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial of tipifarnib in patients who have solid tumors with HRAS mutations in May 2015, and a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with peripheral T cell lymphoma, or PTCL, in September 2015. We plan to initiate a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS, in the first half of 2016.

In terms of the pipeline, it includes two preclinical programs. Kura is advancing KO-947, a small molecule inhibitor of extracellular-signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2, as a potential treatment for patients with tumors that have mutations in or other dysregulation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase, signaling pathway, including pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma.

The company intends to use the proceeds from this offering to develop its pipeline and fund its research. The remainder will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.

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