Scancell Holdings PLC (AIM:SCLP, OTC:SCNLF, FRA:SCP), the developer of cancer immunotherapies, is pressing ahead with plans to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange following an all-share merger with US biotech Neuphoria Therapeutics, announced in July.
The combined company will trade under the ticker "SCLT" and retain the Scancell name, with shareholders voting on the deal at a general meeting on 20 October.
The transaction comes with a substantial financing package that is expected to generate around $75 million on completion, drawn from a private placement, UK equity offerings and the first two tranches of a debt facility.
Scancell raised £15.7 million through a UK placing and retail offer in late July and has since secured a $25 million loan facility from funds managed by BlackRock, the US asset manager.
Funds managed by Redmile Group, a San Francisco-based healthcare investment firm, have agreed to convert their outstanding convertible loan notes into American Depositary Shares on completion of the merger.
The Nasdaq push coincides with a critical period in Scancell's clinical programme.
The company has received regulatory clearance from both the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to begin a phase III trial of its lead drug candidate, iSCIB1+, in advanced melanoma.
The trial will enrol approximately 550 patients across sites in the US, EU, UK, Canada and Australia, with patients randomised to receive iSCIB1+ alongside the checkpoint inhibitor combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab, or a placebo alongside the same drug combination.
Scancell expects to initiate the phase III study at some point this quarter.
The company's annual results for the year to 30 April 2026 show an operating loss of £17.4 million, widening from £15.0 million the previous year, largely reflecting the absence of £4.7 million in licence revenue that Scancell received in 2025 from Danish antibody specialist Genmab.
Research and development expenses fell to £12.0 million from £14.7 million, primarily due to lower manufacturing costs.
Cash stood at £5.3 million at the period end, down from £16.9 million a year earlier, and Scancell acknowledged it does not currently have sufficient committed funding to meet its cash requirements for the next 12 months without the merger and private placement completing.
Elsewhere in the pipeline, early data from the ModiFY trial of Modi-1 in head and neck cancer showed partial responses in three of the first seven patients, an overall response rate of 43% at 25 weeks.
Further data from that trial are expected later in 2026.
