Allogene Therapeutics (ALLO) began trading on the Nasdaq on 11 October 2018

Allogene Therapeutics is a biotechnology company with a mission to catalyze the next revolution in cancer treatment through the development of allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy directed at blood cancers and solid tumors. Founded and led by former Kite Pharma executives.

• Allogene priced an upsized 18 mln share IPO (from 16 mln shares) at $18.00, the high-end of the expected $16.00-18.00 range, giving the firm a market capitalization of $2.05 billion and making it the largest biotech to go public since 2009.
• Opened for trading at $22 after pricing IPO at $18
• Founded in 2017. IPO comes less than a year since the company was formed.
• CEO David Chang and Chairman Arie Belldegrun’s had management experience at Kite Pharma Inc. In 2017, Gilead Sciences Inc. bought Kite for almost $12 billion after a four-year stint as a public company.
• HQ: South San Francisco, California-based 
• https://www.allogene.com/

2nd day of trading

President Nelson Griggs delivers the Opening Bell crystal to Arie Belldegrun, M.D., FACS, Executive Chairman & Co-Founder & David Chang, M.D. Ph.D., President, CEO, & Co-Founder

President Nelson Griggs

By using cells from donors, allogeneic therapies could be made in large batches and be readily available for treatment. The promise is these treatments will reduce costs, and therefore, be used to treat more patients. Gilead’s Yescarta and Novartis’s Kymriah, so far the only two CAR-T therapies approved in the U.S, are priced at $373,000 and $475,000, respectively.

What’s Next
Allogene, which raised $324 million in initial gross proceeds, plans to use the funds to advance so-called off-the-shelf CAR-T therapies that use cells from healthy donors, rather than patients’ own, so they don’t need to be personalized for each cancer patient. Allogene sees initiating human trials for its experimental therapies in non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma next year, and advancing its early-stage study in leukemia in the second half of 2019.

Allogene’s UCART19 is being studied in clinical trials in patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The company anticipates registrational trials by 2019, along with plans to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration.