Oruka Therapeutics announces $180 million private placement led by Viking Global

Oruka Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ORKA) agreed to a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, that is expected to bring about $180 million in gross proceeds before placement agent fees and offering expenses. The company announced the deal in a press release dated September 17, 2025, which it filed as an exhibit to an 8-K. Oruka is selling 10,933,405 shares of common stock at $15.00 each, and pre-funded warrants for 1,066,666 shares at $14.999 per warrant, with an exercise price of $0.001 per share. The closing is expected on or about September 19, 2025, subject to customary conditions.

Who sold the deal

Jefferies, TD Cowen, Guggenheim Securities and LifeSci Capital are joint placement agents. The release does not give their fees. Viking Global Investors led the PIPE. The release also names Affinity Healthcare Fund, Blackstone Multi-Asset Investing, Commodore Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Deep Track Capital, Fairmount, Great Point Partners, Palo Alto Investors, Perceptive Advisors, Surveyor Capital, a Citadel company, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and Woodline Partners as participants, along with "a leading life sciences investment firm." It names no legal counsel.

The registration obligation

The shares and the pre-funded warrants were sold in a transaction not involving a public offering. Oruka and the investors signed a registration rights agreement on the same date as the purchase agreement. Under it, Oruka has agreed to file a registration statement to resell the shares and the common stock issuable on exercise of the pre-funded warrants. Until that resale statement is effective, the investors cannot resell the shares in the United States, except under an available exemption.

The cash runway and the readout dates

The company says it intends to use the net proceeds, together with its existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, for research and development, general corporate expenses and working capital. It expects its cash to fund operations for at least one year after two readouts in 2027: the Phase 2 data for ORKA-002 and the Phase 2b EVERLAST-B data for ORKA-001.

That is the central claim in the release, and it is a forecast tied to clinical results that have not been reported. The release does not give the company's cash balance at a current date, its spending plan or the cost of the Phase 2b study. The runway therefore depends on readouts that are scheduled for 2027 and could slip.

The programs

Oruka describes itself as developing novel biologics for chronic skin diseases, mainly plaque psoriasis. Its lead, ORKA-001, targets the p19 subunit of interleukin-23 for psoriasis. Its co-lead, ORKA-002, targets interleukin-17A and interleukin-17F for psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and other conditions. The release says the antibodies were engineered by Paragon Therapeutics and aims for dosing once or twice a year. Those are design goals. The release reports no clinical efficacy or safety data.

The company has been public for about a year. The earlier private company, Pre-Merger Oruka, was incorporated on February 6, 2024, to hold intellectual property from Paragon. The reverse merger into ARCA biopharma closed on August 29, 2024, and the combined company took the Oruka name and the ticker ORKA on that date.

What the release leaves out

The release says about 67.1 million shares of common stock and common stock equivalents will be outstanding after the transaction, counting shares underlying pre-funded warrants and Series B non-voting convertible preferred stock. It does not give the count before the closing, so the dilution to existing holders cannot be measured from the release alone.

The release is forward-looking in several places, and it warns that the expected closing and the use of proceeds could differ from current plans. The runway statement holds only if the readouts arrive on the schedule the company gives.

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