LPTX - Leap Therapeutics falls after all-stock deal to acquire Flame Biosciences

Oncology-focused biotech Leap Therapeutics ( NASDAQ: LPTX ) lost ~2% pre-market Tuesday after announcing an agreement with privately-held Flame Biosciences to acquire the latter in an all-stock transaction.

The deal will add Flame's ~$50M of year-end net cash, its Phase 2 cancer candidate FL-301, and two preclinical antibody candidates, FL-302 and FL-501, to Leap's ( LPTX ) pipeline.

Per the terms, Leap ( LPTX ) will issue ~19.8M shares of its common stock and ~136.8K of Series X non-voting convertible preferred stock, each of which will eventually convert to 1K shares of common stock, to Flame investors.

In addition, the company will pay 80% of the after-tax net proceeds from any post-merger deals to out-license or sell Flame's anti-IL-1b antibodies, FL-101 or FL-103.

The combined company will be led by Leap's ( LPTX ) management and continue to trade on Nasdaq with the ticker "LPTX." Its year-end cash balance of ~$115M is expected to be sufficient to fund the combined company's operating expenses and clinical programs for FL-301 and Leap's ( LPTX ) Phase 2 cancer candidate DKN-01.

In October, Leap ( LPTX ) announced the start of enrollment in its Phase 2 trial for DKN-01 in combination with Roche's ( OTCQX:RHHBY ) ( OTCQX:RHHBF ) standard of care bevacizumab and chemotherapy in colorectal cancer.

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