Aspen Neuroscience, a San Diego biotech developing a therapy to replace brain cells lost to Parkinson\u2019s disease, announced plans Monday for an initial public offering.<\/p>\n
The company has been developing regenerative therapies since 2018. Its lead candidate, sasineprocel, is an experimental treatment that takes a patient\u2019s own skin cells, reprograms them into stem cells and develops them into neuron precursors. Those cells are then transplanted into the brain to replace lost dopamine-producing neurons.<\/p>\n
Parkinson\u2019s is a progressive disease, in which dopamine-producing brain cells gradually die. Aspen\u2019s treatment aims to regenerate these dying brain cells.<\/p>\n
Like a single aspen tree that eventually grows into a grove, the therapy aims to regrow neurons from the patient\u2019s own cells \u2014 hence the name of the company.<\/p>\n
Aspen has an ongoing Phase 1\/2a trial, and it\u2019s planning a Phase 3 trial in the second half of 2027, it said in a press release.<\/p>\n
The company plans to raise $150 million by offering 9.4 million shares at $15 to $17 each. At the midpoint of that range, the company would have a fully diluted market value of $494 million. The money would help fund development of sasineprocel.<\/p>\n
Parkinson\u2019s is currently recognized as one of the most common neurological conditions, according to the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. It affects about 1.5 million people in the U.S., the school says.<\/p>\n
Parkinson\u2019s has no cure. Sasineprocel is still being tested, and it\u2019s too early to know how well it works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aspen Neuroscience, a San Diego biotech developing a therapy to replace brain cells lost to Parkinson\u2019s disease, announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[19093,387,181,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-508864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-biotech","tag-business","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}