Early Thoughts On Autolus IPO

Autolus Therapeutics, a small British biotech company, has filed to go public. Reuters reported that the company "had filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) under the ticker symbol AUTL." At this early stage, we currently do not know how many shares Autolus will sell and at what price.

Autolus is developing an interesting potential treatment which could change how we fight cancer, and is working on a wide number of ways to fight different kinds of cancer. But this company is at a very early development stage, which means less firm scientific data than investors should like. While it is too early to declare whether Autolus will be a good investment or not, investors should view this company, present in many kitchen cabinets, with a skeptical eye for now.

CAR-T Treatments

Most people think of cancer treatments in the form of drugs or chemotherapy which kill cancer cells. But some biotech companies are working on a new therapy called chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, or CAR-T therapy. As Chemical & Engineering News details, this therapy works by engineering a patient’s white blood cells to aggressively track and destroy cancer cells.

CAR-T therapy has major potential and the FDA has begun approving certain treatments from other companies like Novartis (NYSE:NVS). But it carries major risks as well. Treatment must be personalized to the patient, and the new T-cells can run amok and provoke a deadly cytokine storm. Autolus’s plan is to develop new CAR-T therapies which are less likely to provoke said reaction, which would make the therapy safer and easier to use for a wider range of patients.

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