TuHURA Biosciences completes Kineta acquisition, paying 0.185298 TuHURA share per Kineta share

TuHURA Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: HURA) completed its acquisition of Kineta, Inc. on June 30, 2025. The closing is reported in a Form 8-K filed June 30, 2025 under Items 2.01, 7.01 and 9.01. The company says it will file the financial statements and pro forma information for the acquired business by amendment, no later than 71 days after the 8-K was due.

How the merger works

The merger agreement is dated December 11, 2024 and was amended on May 5, 2025. The parties are TuHURA, two TuHURA merger subsidiaries, Kineta and Craig Philips, who signed solely as representative of Kineta's stockholders. In a two-step structure, one merger sub merged into Kineta, and the surviving Kineta then merged into a second merger sub, which survived as a TuHURA subsidiary.

Each Kineta share converted into 0.185298 TuHURA shares, or about 2,868,169 TuHURA shares at closing. Kineta holders are also entitled to a pro rata share of about 1,129,885 more TuHURA shares, due six months after closing and subject to adjustment for losses in that period. They may also receive a share of cash from disposed legacy Kineta assets, to be paid later under the agreement. Fractional shares are paid in cash at $5.7528.

Kineta traded over the counter under the symbol KANT. TuHURA's press release describes the acquisition as adding an antibody formerly known as KVA1213, now renamed TBS-2025.

The asset and the plan

TBS-2025 is a monoclonal antibody that inhibits VISTA. TuHURA's press release calls it a Phase 2-ready drug candidate. TuHURA says it plans to start a Phase 2 randomized trial of the antibody in the second half of 2025, possibly in combination with a menin inhibitor in NPM1 mutated acute myeloid leukemia. The press release also describes a possible conjugate with a delta opioid receptor inhibitor. Those are plans. The press release says TBS-2025 was studied in a dose escalation Phase 1/2 trial in patients with relapsed or treatment-refractory advanced solid tumors, alone (24 patients) and with pembrolizumab (16 patients), and was well tolerated at doses up to 1,000mg. It reports greater than 90% receptor occupancy across the every-two-week dosing interval. It reports no efficacy results, and those two arms are small.

TuHURA's own lead program is IFx-2.0, which the press release says is being investigated for its potential to overcome primary resistance to checkpoint inhibitors in Merkel cell carcinoma.

Money and the runway

Leerink Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to TuHURA on the transaction, according to the press release. The press release names no financial advisor for Kineta. The press release says closing unlocks the fourth tranche of funds from a $12.5 million aggregate PIPE financing announced on June 3, 2025.

The 2024 annual report on Form 10-K says the company has expressed substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. It reported cash and cash equivalents of $12.7 million at December 31, 2024. Based on its operating plan at that time, it said its cash, short-term investments and expected payment of notes receivable from warrant exercises should fund operations through late fourth quarter 2025. The 10-K calls that estimate one that may prove materially wrong.

The same annual report lists the Kintara merger among the company's risks, including that it may not realize the anticipated benefits of that merger.

What the share issue means

The exchange ratio is fixed, but the six-month adjustment depends on losses incurred by the Kineta business in that period, so the final share count is not known from the 8-K.

What comes next

The next filings are Kineta's financial statements and the pro forma statements. The filings give no start date for the Phase 2 trial, no date for the six-month share issue and no figure for the cash position after closing.

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