Ligand provides up to $47 million financing support to AvenCell Therapeutics
- Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LGND) entered a financing agreement with AvenCell Therapeutics valued at up to $47 million.
- The agreement includes up to $41 million in royalty-based financing and up to $6 million in Series C equity financing.
- Funding will support AvenCell’s oncology pipeline, including AVC-201 and AVC-203 clinical programs.
Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LGND) announced a financing agreement with AvenCell Therapeutics that could provide up to $47 million to support development of AvenCell’s cancer treatment pipeline.
Under the agreement, Ligand committed up to $41 million in exchange for a royalty interest on worldwide annual net sales of AvenCell’s current and future pipeline assets.
The royalty rate will range from mid-single-digit to low-double-digit percentages depending on the total amount funded under the agreement.
The financing will be provided through four tranches.
The first tranche is payable at closing, while the remaining three tranches depend on achieving specified clinical milestones and meeting other financing conditions.
In addition, Ligand committed up to $6 million in AvenCell’s Series C financing round.
The investment is intended to support advancement of AvenCell’s oncology programs, including AVC-201, which is being evaluated in a Phase 1b expansion trial for relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and AVC-203, a Phase 1a program targeting B-cell malignancies.
The agreement provides Ligand with potential long-term royalty exposure to AvenCell’s pipeline while helping fund continued clinical development of investigational cancer therapies.
