Whitehawk Therapeutics Stock Rockets on AI Partnership

16 October 2025

Stock jump: WHWK shares surged on Oct. 16, 2025 after announcing a collaboration with Tempus AI ^[1]. Investing.com reported the stock “surged 67%” on the news ^[2].
Recent prices: WHWK closed Oct. 15 at about $2.10 (up ~6.6% that day) ^[3] ^[4]. Early on Oct. 16 it was trading well above $3.00, reflecting the pre-market rally.
Tempus deal: The deal is a “multi-year collaboration” leveraging Tempus’s real-world patient data and AI tools to refine Whitehawk’s cancer trials ^[5]. Whitehawk’s CEO Dave Lennon said the partnership will guide their programs “by data-driven insights” ^[6].
Pipeline focus: Whitehawk is developing antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting PTK7, MUC16 and SEZ6 in solid tumors ^[7] ^[8]. The company plans IND filings for its lead ADCs (HWK-007 and HWK-016) by year-end 2025 ^[9]. (These ADCs attach potent drugs to antibodies, a cutting‑edge precision cancer strategy.)
Financials: In Q2 (June 30) 2025, Whitehawk lost $0.76 per share, missing estimates ^[10]. It reported ~$177.2M in cash on hand, up from $47.2M a year earlier, and says this will fund operations into 2028 ^[11].
Analyst view: Few analysts cover WHWK. As of early Oct., the consensus rating was “reduce” (more sellers than buyers) ^[12]. Zacks recently upgraded WHWK to a “Hold,” but Weiss Ratings and others still view it skeptically ^[13]. Price targets are in the low-$2 range.
Industry trend: ADCs are a hot area in oncology. Leading ADCs (e.g. AstraZeneca’s Enhertu) now sell for multibillion annual revenues ^[14]. Major pharma like Boehringer Ingelheim are rapidly expanding their ADC pipelines ^[15]. A recent report noted a flood of new conjugated cancer drugs (436 added in 2024/25) ^[16]. Whitehawk’s AI-focused partnership taps this trend toward precision, biomarker-driven cancer therapies.

Whitehawk’s stock popped dramatically on Oct. 16 after news of the Tempus collaboration. Shares had been around $2 per share in mid-October ^[17], but the new AI partnership sent them soaring in early trading. By mid-day Oct. 16, various data sites showed WHWK up roughly 50–67% on the session ^[18]. (For comparison, it had already gained ~6.6% on Oct. 15 ^[19] ^[20].) The sudden jump reflects investor excitement about the Tempus deal, which was announced in a press release on Oct. 16 ^[21].

The Tempus AI collaboration was officially billed as a “multi-year” partnership to use Tempus’s de-identified, multimodal clinical data to improve Whitehawk’s ADC drug development ^[22]. In practice, this means Whitehawk will apply Tempus’s large real-world patient database and AI analytics to design smarter clinical trials and identify the patients most likely to benefit from its ADCs ^[23] ^[24]. Tempus’s COO, Ryan Fukushima, said that pairing “Tempus’ comprehensive, multimodal data” with Whitehawk’s ADC expertise creates “a powerful foundation” for validating Whitehawk’s cancer targets ^[25]. Whitehawk’s CEO, Dr. Dave Lennon, added that the goal is to “better understand the expression of our ADC protein targets” using data-driven insights to prioritize which cancers to target first ^[26]. In other words, instead of relying solely on lab tests of tumor samples (IHC), the partnership will use large-scale RNA and clinical data to find where the targets PTK7, MUC16, SEZ6 are most relevant, potentially speeding patient recruitment and approval.

Whitehawk’s pipeline is focused on ADCs in development. Its website notes three ADC assets in-licensed from WuXi Biologics, intended to reach the clinic soon ^[27]. The lead candidates, HWK-007 (targeting PTK7) and HWK-016 (targeting MUC16), are slated to file INDs by the end of 2025 ^[28] ^[29]. The third asset, HWK-206 (targeting SEZ6), is planned for IND by mid-2026 ^[30]. Management emphasizes that these targets are “clinically validated” proteins with high expression in lung, gynecologic, and neuroendocrine cancers ^[31] ^[32]. By leveraging Tempus data, Whitehawk hopes to confirm which tumors have the highest unmet need and best match these ADCs.

On the financial side, Whitehawk remains pre-revenue and cash-burning. In the Aug 7 Q2 report, it disclosed a net loss of $52.6M for the quarter (about $0.76 per share), compared to a much smaller loss a year earlier ^[33]. This included a ~$38M upfront payment to WuXi for the ADC rights, which inflates the loss. Importantly, Whitehawk had a strong cash position: $177.2M on hand as of June 30, 2025, up from $47.2M a year prior ^[34]. Management says that at current spending plans, this cash should fund operations into 2028 ^[35], through initial clinical trials of the ADCs. In practice, that means Whitehawk is unlikely to need a stock-dilutive financing anytime soon – a rare comfort for a small biotech – because it raised a large funds earlier in 2024.

Despite the recent stock spike, Wall Street experts remain cautious. There are few analyst reports: MarketBeat notes only two recent firms covering WHWK ^[36]. Most have rated it at “Hold” or “Sell” (consensus is a “Reduce”) ^[37]. For example, Zacks upgraded WHWK to a hold in early October, while Weiss Ratings still assigns a sell rating ^[38]. Price targets from analysts are modest (around $2–$3), reflecting the company’s early stage. One reason for conservatism is that the stock is very small – market cap was only about $100–101M in early Oct. ^[39] ^[40]. That cap is now higher after the rally, but it still compares to tens of billions for successful ADC companies. In short, some analysts might view WHWK as undervalued on its cash and pipeline, but others warn it has a history of large losses and must prove its science in clinic.

Industry context: Whitehawk’s news taps into broader biotech trends. ADCs have become a blockbuster area of cancer drug development. As BioPharma Dive recently noted, ADCs are “one of the most popular areas of cancer research,” driven by successes like AstraZeneca’s Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) which earned about $3.8 billion in 2024 ^[41]. Virtually all large pharma now has ADC programs: for example, on Oct. 15 Boehringer Ingelheim announced it was licensing a new ADC from Korea’s AimedBio, saying ADCs combine “biological precision with chemical potency” against cancer ^[42]. A market report counted 436 new “conjugated” cancer drugs (mostly ADCs and related formats) added to pipelines in 2024/25 ^[43]. Investors see big value if even one new ADC proves successful.

Overall, Whitehawk’s Tempus deal and resulting stock pop illustrate how data-driven oncology is in focus. The collaboration promises to sharpen Whitehawk’s ADC programs with AI and real-world insights – a strategy many in the industry are pursuing. However, the company still needs to demonstrate clinical wins (e.g. safety/efficacy of HWK-007/016) to justify its valuation. For now, analysts will be watching upcoming trial starts and any new data closely. The October run-up shows sentiment can swing fast on good news, but most professional models will wait for hard clinical milestones before moving off the sidelines ^[44] ^[45].

Sources: Whitehawk Therapeutics/Tempus press releases ^[46] ^[47] ^[48]; stock news and financial data ^[49] ^[50] ^[51] ^[52]; industry reports ^[53] ^[54] ^[55] ^[56]. All quoted data is as of Oct. 16, 2025.

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Whitehawk Therapeutics Stock Rockets on AI Partnership – What Investors Need to Know

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