SpringWorks raises $288M in new stock offering

STAMFORD — SpringWorks Therapeutics, which is developing treatments for severe rare diseases and certain cancers, closed Tuesday on a stock offering that raised about $288 million, an initiative that the company said would crucial to advancing its research and development.

Stamford-based SpringWorks offered about 5.6 million shares of common stock, priced at $51 each, while granting underwriters an option to purchase about 735,000 additional shares.

The financing will allow SpringWorks to continue the clinical development of its late-stage oncology programs and support the commercial launch of those products, according to company officials. The stock issuance followed the company’s $186 million initial public offering held last year.

Those new funds “will also provide us with the flexibility to invest in additional clinical trials for our earlier-stage metastatic solid tumor and multiple myeloma programs as they advance through phase-one trials and potentially yield opportunities for registration-seeking trials,” said SpringWorks CEO Saqib Islam.

Now in phase-three trials, SpringWorks’ Nirogacestat is an oral medicine for desmoid tumors, which are rare soft-tissue tumors that can cause pain, internal bleeding and disfigurement and limit physical motion.

Last week, SpringWorks announced an initiative to study Nirogacestat in combination with a Pfizer-produced treatment in patients with relapsed or refractory forms of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that develops in the bone marrow. SpringWorks was spun off from Pfizer in 2017.

SpringWorks is also evaluating the use of Nirogacestat with a GlaxoSmithKline treatment for multiple myeloma.

Last year, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration granted Nirogacestat “Breakthrough Therapy Designation” to accelerate its review.

At the same time, SpringWorks is developing Mirdametinib, an oral therapy for patients 2 years old and older who have certain forms of Neurofibromatosis type 1, a rare genetic disorder caused by mutations in the NF1 gene.

Mirdametinib focuses on the approximately 30 percent to 50 percent of Neurofibromatosis type 1 patients who develop “plexiform neurofibroma” nerve-sheath tumors, which cause severe pain, disfigurement, debilitating loss of motion and can significantly shorten lifespans, according to SpringWorks.

To expedite its review, Mirdametinib received an FDA Fast Track Designation in June 2019 from the FDA and received an accompanying Orphan Drug Designation from the agency in November 2018.

SpringWorks officials have not disclosed timelines for when they plan file new drug applications to the FDA for Nirogacestat and Mirdametinib.

They expect initial data from a phase-three trial of nirogacestat for the treatment of desmoid tumors in the second or third quarter of 2021 and anticipate providing an update on a “Phase 2b” trial of Mirdametinib in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2021.

Before its IPO, SpringWorks raised several hundred million dollars including a $125 million Series B funding round in 2019 and a $103 million Series A allotment in 2017.

In the past few years, several other Stamford-based biotech firms including Loxo Oncology and Cara Therapeutics have also held IPOs and subsequent stock offerings.

SpringWorks’ main offices are located at 100 Washington Blvd., in the South End of Stamford. The company employs about 75.