Surface Oncology Banks $119.5 Million With IPO and Private Placement

Surface Oncology announced on 4/23/18 the closing of its initial public offering of 7,200,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $15.00 per share. The gross proceeds from the offering were $108.0 million. In addition, Surface has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 1,080,000 additional shares of common stock at the initial public offering price, less the underwriting discount. Surface’s common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “SURF” on April 19, 2018. All of the shares were offered by Surface.

In January of 2016, Surface announced a $170 Million deal with Novartis to develop its next-gen cancer treatments. Surface believes that the reason that most patients don't benefit from ground-breaking checkpoint inhibitors is the suppressive nature of the tumor microenvironment. Surface is developing immunotherapies that target the tumor microenvironment.

The company currently has one candidate in Ph I trials and others in various stages of pre-clinical testing. SRF231 (in Ph I trials) blocks the CD47 signal and makes tumor cells vulnerable to macrophage attack. CD47 is over-expressed in multiple tumor types and acts as a “dont eat me” signal to macrophages. Preclinical studies of SRF231 have shown that it binds with high affinity to CD47, stimulates phagocytosis of cancer cells in vitro, and has potent in vivo anti-tumor activity, both as monotherapy and in combination settings. SRF231 does not induce detectable hemagglutination or phagocytosis of red blood cells in vitro, a potentially important safety advantage.