Clinical-stage cancer biotechnology firm Salspera (TKVA.US), which focuses on developing live biotherapeutic products to stimulate immune responses, announced the terms for its U.S. initial public offering (IPO) on Monday. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company intends to raise $85 million by offering 5.7 million shares within a price range of $14 to $16 per share. Salspera is dedicated to creating a novel class of immunotherapies for solid tumors, termed "live biotherapeutics," which are genetically modified biological agents designed to express specific anti-tumor factors within the tumor microenvironment. Its lead candidate, Saltikva, is an attenuated strain of Salmonella Typhimurium that is non-toxic and administered orally. This engineered strain is designed to express the human interleukin-2 gene (referred to as Salmonella-IL2), a mechanism that may help increase the population of NK cells and CD8+ cytotoxic T cells in both the tumor microenvironment and peripheral blood. The company's current primary focus is on pancreatic cancer, and it has completed a Phase II trial involving patients with Stage IV metastatic pancreatic cancer. Founded in 2017, Salspera plans to list on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol TKVA. Kingswood Capital Markets is acting as the sole book-running manager for the offering.