aibioAadi Bioscience (now Whitehawk Therapeutics) closes $100 million private placement
Tickers WHWK
Aadi Bioscience closed a private placement of about $100 million on March 4, 2025, selling 21,592,000 shares at $2.40 and pre-funded warrants for 20,076,500 more shares. The company says the money, with the FYARRO sale, should fund operations into 2028.
Key facts
- Company
- Whitehawk Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: WHWK)
- News type
- Financings
- Primary source
- Whitehawk Therapeutics, Inc. 8-K (2025-03-04)
Aadi Bioscience, Inc., listed on Nasdaq as AADI, announced on March 4, 2025 that it has closed its previously announced private placement, with total gross proceeds of approximately $100 million. The company describes itself as an oncology therapeutics company applying advanced technologies to established tumor biology to deliver advances in cancer treatment efficiently. The release carries a Morristown, New Jersey dateline.
The placement was led by Ally Bridge Group. New investors include OrbiMed, Invus and Kalehua Capital, along with other accredited investors and Tae Han, co-founder of ProfoundBio. Existing investors include Avoro Capital, KVP Capital and Acuta Capital Partners. The release does not say how much each group bought.
Aadi sold and issued 21,592,000 shares of common stock at $2.40 per share. It also sold pre-funded warrants to buy up to 20,076,500 shares at $2.3999 per warrant share. Jefferies LLC acted as exclusive placement agent for the private placement. The release names no financial advisor, counsel or other bank for the deal.
Use of the money
Aadi intends to use the net proceeds for upfront payments under its license agreement with WuXi Biologics (Shanghai FX) Co., Ltd., and for working capital and general corporate purposes. The license ties the money to the company's antibody drug conjugate, or ADC, portfolio.
The release says the placement and the sale of the FYARRO business, together with Aadi's existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, are expected to fund operations into 2028. It links that runway to anticipated clinical data readouts for the ADC portfolio. The release gives no dates for those readouts, and the FYARRO sale is described as still proposed rather than completed.
The shares and the resale
The common stock and pre-funded warrants have not been registered under the Securities Act or any state securities laws, so they may not be offered or sold without registration or an exemption. Aadi agreed to a registration rights agreement under which it will file a resale registration statement with the SEC covering the shares sold in the placement. That registration also covers the shares issuable under the pre-funded warrants. Any resale will be made only by prospectus.
The 21,592,000 new shares and the warrants for up to 20,076,500 more add to the existing share count. The release does not say how many shares were outstanding before the closing.
What the release leaves out
The release gives no cash balance, net loss or FYARRO revenue, and it does not say how many shares each investor bought beyond the group totals. It also does not say how much of the placement proceeds would remain after the license payments.
The release includes forward-looking statements about the anticipated use of proceeds, the completion of the FYARRO sale, the filing of a resale registration statement and the company's cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities position and cash runway after the sale and the placement. It warns that actual results could differ materially and lists among the risks global macroeconomic conditions and volatility, the progress and results of its clinical trials and research programs, and delays in regulatory filings or failure to receive regulatory approval. It points readers to its 2023 annual report, its later quarterly reports and the definitive proxy statement filed on January 31, 2025 for further risks.
The release describes Aadi as a precision oncology company that aims to apply technology to deliver improved therapies for people with difficult-to-treat cancers. That description is the company's own, and the release offers no clinical data to support it.
The 2028 runway statement counts the proceeds of the FYARRO sale, which the release still describes as proposed, along with the placement money, so it rests partly on a sale that had not closed when the release was issued.