Celularity, clinical-stage cellular medicine company, goes public following $138 million merger

Celularity, Inc., a clinical-stage cellular medicine company developing off-the-shelf allogeneictherapies derived from the postpartum human placenta, today announced they are going public.

The news comes after completing the merger with GX Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company. The company will operate under the name Celularity, Inc., and beginning July 19, the company will commence trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker symbol “CELU”.

Proceeds from the transaction totaled approximately $138 million, which included funds held in GXGX’s trust account and a concurrent private placement investment in public equity financing led by existing Celularity shareholders. Celularity’s management team will continue leading the merged company following this transaction.

“Celularity aims to transform the way we approach the treatment of cancer and other diseases by harnessing the versatility, unique immune biology and innate stemness of placental-derived cells,” said Robert J. Hariri, M.D., Ph.D., founder, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of Celularity. “We are immensely proud of our clinical development results so far as well as the state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities we built to support rapid scaling and a competitive cost structure for our placental-derived cell therapeutics. We believe off-the-shelf, allogeneic cell therapies will drive a paradigm shift in how clinicians approach the treatment of cancer and other serious diseases.”

Hariri added, “Our PIPE is led by existing Celularity investors, who understand the company’s pipeline and clinical development program and took advantage of the opportunity to add to their investment in Celularity.”Hariri also noted, “ Celularity has entered into important strategic and commercial partnerships with leaders like Palantir and Arthrex which we believe will strengthen our intellectual property and grow revenues from its existing marketed products.”

Dean C. Kehler, Co-Chairman and CEO of GX Acquisition Corp. and new board member of Celularity, added, “We are excited to see Celularity take this very important next step in its evolution as a transformative biotechnology company by becoming a publicly-traded company.

“This step will enable Celularity to continue to leverage the company’s commercial and clinical stage assets to treat diseases of high unmet need, like cancer, infectious diseases and degenerative diseases,” he added.

The company’s clinical pipeline includes multiple clinical stage programs including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), with a total of five clinical programs expected by the first half of 2022.

CYNK-001, the company’s lead product candidate, is the only cryopreserved, allogeneic, off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cell therapy to be developed from placental hematopoietic stem cells. The agent expresses perforin and granzyme B, has showcased cytotoxic activity against hematological tumors and solid tumor cell lines, and can secrete immunomodulatory cytokines in the presence of tumor cells.

The novel therapy is under investigation as a potential option in multiple myeloma, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and glioblastoma multiforme; it is also being evaluated in infectious diseases like COVID-19 (NCT04365101).