It hasn't taken long for initial public offering (IPO) activity to continue its torrid pace with two more companies announcing their filings. One of Canada's leading private companies, Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Burnaby, British Columbia, is hoping to join the public ranks filing an S-1 with the SEC and planning to raise up to $52 million. Xenon is leveraging its extreme genetics discovery platform to develop a pipeline of therapeutics for orphan indications, both for its own internal discovery programs and in collaboration with their pharmaceutical partners including Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Genentech Inc. and Merck & Co. Inc.

The collaborations, the company stated in its filing, have generated more than $140 million in non-equity funding to date with the potential to provide a further $1 billion in future potential milestone payments, as well as royalties and co-promotion income on product sales.

The most recent alliance was struck with Genentech Inc., a unit of Roche AG, of Basel, Switzerland, in March for pain genetics, with the goal of discovering and validating therapeutic targets and mechanisms to treat pain. The company's extreme genetics discovery platform focuses on rare phenotypes where individuals have an inability to perceive pain or have nonprecipitated spontaneous severe pain. Both companies will own intellectual property emerging from the alliance. Xenon also granted Genentech a time-limited, exclusive right of negotiation on a target-by-target basis to form joint drug discovery collaborations. The collaboration builds on a potential $646 million strategic alliance between the companies to discover and develop pain compounds and companion diagnostics. (See BioWorld Today, March 27, 2014.)

Xenon reported that its most advanced product candidate is TV-45070 (formerly XEN402), partnered with Teva (through its subsidiary, Ivax International GmbH). Teva is currently conducting a 300-patient, randomized phase IIb trial of the compound in osteoarthritis of the knee and is currently planning additional development of TV-45070 in neuropathic pain indications.

According to their S-1 filing the company had about $45 million cash on hand as of June 30. It intends to list its common shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol XENE.

CATHEPSIN DRUGS

Menlo Park, Calif.-based Virobay Inc. has also filed its S-1 to raise about $50 million. It is employing a cysteine cathepsin platform for the development and commercialization of drugs targeting conditions such as neuropathic pain, Crohn's disease and psoriasis.

The company reported that their most advanced product candidate is VBY-036, a potent and selective cathepsin S inhibitor targeting neuropathic pain. Phase I trials with the compound have been completed in 124 healthy volunteers, evaluating the safety and pharmacokinetics of the drug by oral administration. Biomarkers used in these trials confirmed robust inhibition of cathepsin S at a range of doses. The clinical development plan includes a phase II trial in approximately 120 subjects with neuropathic pain in the first half of 2015 with results expected early in 2016.

The company's product portfolio also includes VBY-891, which has been licensed to Leo Pharma A/S, and is being jointly developed as an oral treatment for moderate-to-severe psoriasis. A phase I trial with VBY-891 in 89 healthy volunteers has been completed, and it is planned to advance the compound into a phase II trial in approximately 64 subjects with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in the first half of next year.

In July Virobay closed an expanded Series B second tranche financing of $8 million bringing the round to a total of $18 million. The first tranche was drawn in 2010.

According to their S-1 filing the company had about $8 million cash on hand as of June 30, and intends to list its common shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol VBAY.

Should both companies price their planned offerings they will add their names to a record number of successful global biotech IPOs already completed this year, collectively generating more than $4.3 billion, according to data from BioWorld Snapshots.