IPO TRACKER

A real-time look at every biotech IPO filed and the amount raised in all the world's indexes. Compiled by editor Max Gelman.

COMPANIES
RAISED
Traditional IPOs

13

1.09B

SPACs

12

2.17B

TOTAL

25

3.26B

IPO Tracker Logo
Explore: 202120232024
Q1
Cin­Cor Phar­ma
Vig­il Neu­ro­science
Amy­lyx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals
Hill­stream Bio­Phar­ma
Gele­sis
ProKid­ney
Ak­ili In­ter­ac­tive
Ar­cel­lx
Nu­vec­tis Phar­ma
TC Bio­pharm
Blue Wa­ter Vac­cines
Am­i­cus Ther­a­peu­tics (w...
Scilex Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals
Om­niAb
AN2 Ther­a­peu­tics
Q2
Fore­site Life Sci­ences Corp. (wi...
Ac­celus (with­drawn)
Co­ep­tis Ther­a­peu­tics
Cy­tovia Ther­a­peu­tics
Hill­e­Vax
Be­lite Bio
Pep­Gen
eu­reK­ING
Okyo Phar­ma
Eleu­sis (with­drawn)
Sen­ti Bio

FILED

eu­reK­ING

Type & Stage
SPAC: Filed
CEO
Michael Kloss
ticker
Unknown
exchange
NASDAQ
Filed Date
9 May
Est Raise
$161M

snapshot

What do you get when some of the most pow­er­ful CD­MOs in the world join forces? The first SPAC ded­i­cat­ed to meet­ing the crit­i­cal de­mand for bio­man­u­fac­tur­ing on the con­ti­nent. eu­reK­ING is backed by eu­reKARE, the in­vest­ment com­pa­ny fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy and mi­cro­bio­me in­no­va­tion across Eu­rope. The com­pa­ny has plans to raise 150 mil­lion eu­ros, list on the Eu­ronext Paris and has iden­ti­fied 40 man­u­fac­tur­ing tar­gets. The cre­ation of the SPAC tar­gets a boom­ing, yet frag­ment­ed in­dus­try, eu­reK­ING says on its web­site. It will high­light three high-growth seg­ments: bi­o­log­ics, cell and gene ther­a­py and live bio­ther­a­peu­tics. It will seek to fill a gap left be­hind by small- to mid-sized biotechs that aren’t ad­dressed by the largest CD­MOs, and pro­vide lo­cal fa­cil­i­ties. eu­reK­ING dubs bio­man­u­fac­tur­ing the “next Eu­ro­pean Fron­tier” on its web­site.

coverage

PRICED

Sen­ti Bio

Type & Stage
SPAC: Merged
CEO
Timothy Lu
ticker
SNTI
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$84.5M
Total Deal Size
$140.3
Current Price
$1.41
Merger Closed
9 June

snapshot

Sen­ti Bio and its SPAC part­ner, Omid Farokhzad’s Dy­nam­ics Spe­cial Pur­pose Corp., com­plet­ed their merg­er on June 9. Orig­i­nal­ly ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er $296 mil­lion in gross pro­ceeds, the fi­nal deal left Sen­ti with $140.3 mil­lion. Those funds in­clud­ed $84.5 mil­lion of the ex­pect­ed $86 mil­lion from the SPAC trust, $50.6 mil­lion of the ex­pect­ed $66.8 mil­lion from the PIPE fi­nanc­ing, and a re­cent $5.2 mil­lion in­vest­ment by Leaps by Bay­er. How­ev­er, due to one in­vestor, Life­Force Cap­i­tal, fail­ing to time­ly fund its $16.2 mil­lion com­mit­ment, Sen­ti was forced to waive a $150 mil­lion cash clos­ing con­di­tion re­lat­ed to the deal, in or­der to fin­ish the merg­er by June 9. Sen­ti Bio says it in­tends to en­force Life­Force’s le­gal oblig­a­tions un­der its sub­scrip­tion agree­ment.

coverage

Eleu­sis (with­drawn)

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Shlomi Raz
ticker
Unknown
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
Unknown
Total Deal Size
Unknown
Current Price
Unknown
Announced
9 June

snapshot

Eleu­sis had an­nounced its planned SPAC merg­er on Jan­u­ary 20, but said the deal had been ter­mi­nat­ed on June 9. The biotech has been fo­cused on mak­ing psy­che­delics in­to med­i­cines, and its lead can­di­date — a psilo­cy­bin in­fu­sion called ELE-Psi­lo — in de­vel­op­ment for de­pres­sion. ELE-Psi­lo is ex­pect­ed to en­ter Phase I tri­als some­time this year. Psilo­cy­bin is a hal­lu­cino­gen nor­mal­ly found in “mag­ic mush­rooms,” a type of nat­u­ral­ly-grown mush­room that has been used for recre­ation­al and re­li­gious pur­pos­es. Ac­cord­ing to the biotech, an IV in­fu­sion of the hal­lu­cino­gen would be more ef­fec­tive than oral in­ges­tion be­cause it would cut down on vari­abil­i­ty. Ab­sorp­tion and me­tab­o­lism would vary sig­nif­i­cant­ly in dif­fer­ent pa­tients with the same dose of psilo­cy­bin when done oral­ly, which would de­crease when in­ject­ed straight in­to the blood­stream, Eleu­sis said. Eleu­sis had ex­pect­ed to use the pro­ceeds re­ceived from Sil­ver Spike Ac­qui­si­tion Corp. II to sup­port con­tin­ued clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of ELE-Psi­lo, move ear­ly stage drug dis­cov­ery and trans­la­tion­al re­search for­ward and fa­cil­i­tate ex­pan­sion of Eleu­sis’s sub­sidiary An­dala, which man­ages psy­chi­atric care clin­ics na­tion­al­ly.

coverage

Okyo Phar­ma

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Gary Jacob
ticker
OKYO
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
17 May
Total Raised
$2.5M
Priced at
$4
Current Price
$2.2

snapshot

A pre­clin­i­cal play­er, the biotech is work­ing on new treat­ments for in­flam­ma­to­ry dry eye dis­eases and oc­u­lar pain. Its lead pro­gram, OK-101, is in the midst of the IND sub­mis­sion process. Okyo says a Phase I study will not be re­quired, and a Phase II study is ex­pect­ed to be­gin in ei­ther the fourth quar­ter of 2022 or ear­ly 2023. Ex­ecs an­tic­i­pate Phase II da­ta to come in the sec­ond half of 2023.

coverage

Pep­Gen

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
James McArthur
ticker
PEPG
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
6 May
Total Raised
$108M
Priced at
$12
Current Price
$13.41

snapshot

Pep­Gen de­buted on Wall Street about a month af­ter tran­si­tion­ing to a clin­i­cal-stage com­pa­ny with its Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy tri­al in Cana­da. The biotech fo­cus­es on de­vel­op­ing “cell-pen­e­trat­ing” pep­tides for se­vere neu­ro­mus­cu­lar dis­eases, such as DMD, with lead can­di­date PGN-EDO51 ex­pect­ed to read out topline da­ta by the end of 2022. Pep­Gen priced be­low its range, mark­ing a rough pub­licly trad­ed start for the RA-backed com­pa­ny’s ef­forts to im­prove up­on Sarep­ta’s DMD drug Ex­ondys 51. In the pri­vate mar­kets, Pep­Gen se­cured $113 mil­lion in crossover in­vestor in­ter­est in the sum­mer of 2021. Pep­Gen wants to raise mon­ey for the lead DMD as­set, an IND in the first half of 2023 for a my­oton­ic dy­s­tro­phy type 1 drug and three more DMD ther­a­pies (all tar­get­ing dif­fer­ent ex­ons) fur­ther down in the pipeline.

coverage

Hill­e­Vax

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Rob Hershberg
ticker
HLVX
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
29 April
Total Raised
$200M
Priced at
$17
Current Price
$16.7

snapshot

Hill­e­Vax is a norovirus vac­cine de­vel­op­er spunout from Take­da by late biotech leg­end Tachi Ya­ma­da. The com­pa­ny made the pub­lic leap less than 10 months af­ter be­ing spun out from Take­da, with back­ing from Fra­zier Health­care Part­ners. Hill­e­Vax launched with a Take­da norovirus vac­cine can­di­date that had al­ready com­plet­ed sev­er­al stud­ies; Hill­e­Vax says it’s now been a part of nine Phase I and Phase II tri­als. The shot is be­ing test­ed in a slate of Phase II stud­ies aim­ing to eval­u­ate its ef­fec­tive­ness in dif­fer­ent age pop­u­la­tions. Hill­e­Vax says in its S-1 it plans to launch a Phase IIb study in in­fants some­time in the sec­ond quar­ter, mark­ing the first study it will con­duct, rather than Take­da. The goal is to en­roll about 200 in­fants. Hill­e­Vax aims to re­port in­ter­im im­muno­genic­i­ty da­ta in the first half of 2023, fol­lowed by top-line da­ta in the sec­ond half. Funds from the IPO are ex­pect­ed to be uti­lized for this study, as well as to prep for an even­tu­al Phase III tri­al.

coverage

Be­lite Bio

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Yu-Hsin Lin
ticker
BLTE
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
29 April
Total Raised
$36M
Priced at
$6
Current Price
$29.9

snapshot

The com­pa­ny is de­vel­op­ing an eye dis­ease pro­gram, dubbed LBS-008, with a Phase III tri­al that launched in the first quar­ter. The com­pa­ny is test­ing it in both dry AMD and Star­gardt dis­ease, with the piv­otal study ex­am­in­ing ado­les­cents who suf­fer from the lat­ter con­di­tion. Its can­di­date is an oral once-a-day treat­ment de­signed to re­duce and main­tain the de­liv­ery of vi­t­a­min A to the eye. The pro­gram is el­i­gi­ble for a pri­or­i­ty re­view vouch­er should it be ap­proved, po­ten­tial­ly an­oth­er source of cash for Be­lite Bio. Most of the IPO funds are slat­ed for fur­ther clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of LBS-008 in dry AMD, and Be­lite Bio hopes the of­fer­ing will en­able it to com­plete its on­go­ing Phase II and Phase III clin­i­cal tri­als in both dry AMD and Star­gardt dis­ease.

coverage

Cy­tovia Ther­a­peu­tics

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Daniel Teper
ticker
INKC
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$207M
Total Deal Size
$227
Current Price
Unknown
Announced
26 April

snapshot

About 14 months af­ter ink­ing a nat­ur­al killer cell deal with Cel­lec­tis, Cy­tovia agreed with the SPAC Isle­worth Health­care Ac­qui­si­tion to hit the Nas­daq in a blank check deal. It will bankroll INDs and the ini­ti­a­tion of Phase I/II clin­i­cal tri­als for four as­sets: CYT-303, CYT-100, CYT-150 and CYT-503. Af­ter dol­ing out $15 mil­lion up­front, with $760 mil­lion in mile­stones an­tic­i­pat­ed, to Cel­lec­tis in Feb­ru­ary 2021, the com­pa­ny went on to cre­ate a Chi­na joint ven­ture. The biotech teamed up with Chi­na-based biotech in­vestor TF Cap­i­tal to form Cy­toL­ynx Ther­a­peu­tics, with $45 mil­lion in fund­ing, in Sep­tem­ber 2021. Aside from its part­ner­ship with Cel­lec­tis, Cy­tovia al­so has linked arms with Cy­toIm­mune Ther­a­peu­tics, the He­brew Uni­ver­si­ty of Jerusalem, IN­SERM, the New York Stem Cell Foun­da­tion, the Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tute, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co.

coverage

Co­ep­tis Ther­a­peu­tics

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Dave Mehalick
ticker
BHSE
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$75M
Total Deal Size
$175
Current Price
$6.5
Announced
19 April

snapshot

Co­ep­tis’ merg­er agree­ment with Bull Horn Hold­ings Corp. came just six days af­ter the biotech an­nounced it planned to ac­quire Stat­era’s TLR5 ag­o­nist plat­form, in­clud­ing en­tolimod, for $6 mil­lion up­front and undis­closed biobucks to fol­low. In De­cem­ber 2021, the FDA lift­ed its clin­i­cal hold on en­tolimod for the treat­ment of acute ra­di­a­tion syn­drome. The po­ten­tial lethal ra­di­a­tion stock­pile drug will like­ly en­ter a Phase II by the end of 2022, CEO Dave Mehal­ick told End­points. Co­ep­tis is al­so work­ing on de­vel­op­ing a cell ther­a­py tar­get­ing CD38-re­lat­ed can­cers and a pre-clin­i­cal in vit­ro di­ag­nos­tic for such can­cers with part­ner Vy­Gen-Bio. The ther­a­peu­tic is in­tend­ed to en­able com­bo ther­a­py with an­ti-CD38 mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies. The CEO found­ed Co­ep­tis in 2017 with for­mer em­ploy­ees from Three Rivers Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which was bought by Kad­mon in 2010. Sanofi ac­quired Kad­mon for about $1.9 bil­lion last Sep­tem­ber.

coverage

Ac­celus (with­drawn)

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Chris Walsh
ticker
CHPM
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
Unknown
Total Deal Size
Unknown
Current Price
$10.18
Announced
18 April

snapshot

Ac­celus and SPAC part­ner CHP Merg­er Corp. called off their busi­ness com­bi­na­tion due to “mar­ket con­di­tions.” The pair had an­nounced in No­vem­ber 2021 that it would at­tempt to take Ac­celus, which fo­cus­es on mak­ing min­i­mal­ly in­va­sive surgery (MIS) a stan­dard of care in spine treat­ment, pub­lic through the $482 mil­lion blank check ve­hi­cle. When the merg­er was first an­nounced, Ac­celus CEO and co-founder Chris Walsh was slat­ed to helm the new com­pa­ny af­ter more than two decades in the space. Out­side of Ac­celus, Walsh spent more than a decade at San Diego de­vice mak­er Nu­Va­sive and about sev­en years in the spine team at Stryk­er, a Michi­gan med­ical tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny.

Fore­site Life Sci­ences Corp. (with­drawn)

Type & Stage
SPAC: Priced
CEO
Jim Tananbaum
ticker
FSAC
exchange
NASDAQ
Priced Date
15 April
Total Raised
Unknown

snapshot

Jim Tanan­baum’s Fore­site Cap­i­tal with­drew its third SPAC pitch in April, hav­ing aimed to raise $250 mil­lion. Fore­site did not give a rea­son in its with­draw­al re­quest. Tanan­baum’s firm ini­tial­ly filed the S-1 in late Feb­ru­ary 2021, around the time when IPO and SPAC ac­tiv­i­ty were at their high­est. The fil­ing came a cou­ple weeks be­fore the SEC asked that the in­sti­tu­tions ad­vis­ing SPACs, such as big banks, vol­un­tar­i­ly pro­vide reg­u­la­tors with their in­ter­nal polic­ing strate­gies. It al­so wasn’t Tanan­baum’s first for­ay in­to the blank check mar­ket ei­ther, as Fore­site had pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en two com­pa­nies pub­lic through re­verse merg­ers. Gem­i­ni Ther­a­peu­tics went pub­lic with a $216 mil­lion SPAC in Oc­to­ber 2020, while Pardes Bio­sciences leapt to Nas­daq with $199 mil­lion in tow af­ter an­nounc­ing in June 2021.

 

AN2 Ther­a­peu­tics

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Eric Easom
ticker
ANTX
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
25 March
Total Raised
$69M
Priced at
$15
Current Price
$9.52

snapshot

AN2 falls un­der RA Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment’s port­fo­lio of new­ly pub­lic com­pa­nies. The biotech re­ceived big back­ing from the Pe­ter Kolchin­sky/Raj Shah-run VC firm in an $80 mil­lion Se­ries A in Jan­u­ary. They fol­lowed it up with the IPO in March. The new mon­ey, ac­cord­ing to AN2, will go to fund fur­ther clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of lead — and so far, sole — can­di­date epe­tra­bo­role in an on­go­ing Phase I tri­al, a planned Phase II/III piv­otal tri­al, man­u­fac­tur­ing and ex­pand­ing in­to oth­er in­di­ca­tions with­in lung dis­ease and in­fec­tions. AN2’s pub­lic turn comes af­ter a large­ly qui­et pe­ri­od since its launch in 2019, when it of­fered on­ly two press re­leas­es in three years — its Se­ries A and Se­ries B an­nounce­ments.

coverage

Om­niAb

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Matt Foehr
ticker
OABI
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$200M
Total Deal Size
$396
Current Price
$3.6
Announced
23 March

snapshot

Par­ent com­pa­ny Lig­and Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals had an­nounced it would spin out its an­ti­body dis­cov­ery unit in No­vem­ber 2021, but didn’t de­cide un­til March 2022 to take the SPAC route. Om­niAb is part­ner­ing with Avista Pub­lic Ac­qui­si­tion Corp. II in a deal ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er at least $130 mil­lion and at most $266 mil­lion in cash, de­pend­ing on whether APAC share­hold­ers de­cide to cash out. Avista has al­so promised to in­vest an ad­di­tion­al $115 mil­lion ($15 mil­lion as a PIPE, and the rest to back­stop po­ten­tial re­demp­tions), while Lig­and will con­tribute $15 mil­lion. An­ti­bod­ies gen­er­at­ed from the Om­niAb plat­form — which spans a num­ber of trans­genic an­i­mals from rat to chick­en to mouse — could rack up 10 ap­provals by 2028, per Lig­and pro­jec­tions. The first ones came in 2021, when Glo­ri­aBio’s zim­bere­limab and EQRx/CStone’s sug­e­mal­imab were ap­proved in Chi­na for dif­fer­ent types of can­cer. Both an­ti-PD-1 an­ti­bod­ies orig­i­nat­ed on the trans­genic rat plat­form, Om­ni­Rat.

coverage

Scilex Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Henry Ji
ticker
SCLX
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$140M
Total Deal Size
$140
Current Price
$3.9
Announced
18 March

snapshot

Sor­ren­to first bought a ma­jor­i­ty stake in Scilex and its patch de­liv­ery tech for non-opi­oid ther­a­pies back in 2016, and has de­cid­ed to spin it out in a SPAC deal with Vick­ers Van­tage Corp I. The com­pa­ny’s lead prod­uct, a top­i­cal for­mu­la­tion of li­do­caine called ZTli­do, is ap­proved to treat post-her­pet­ic neu­ral­gia, a form of post-shin­gles nerve pain. The deal will help fund a sec­ond prod­uct, SP-102, which Scilex aims to com­mer­cial­ize for lum­bar radic­u­lar pain or sci­at­i­ca in 2023, plus a cou­ple of oth­er pro­grams. Scilex al­so has re­vealed Phase III da­ta it tout­ed as pos­i­tive for SP-102, eval­u­at­ing it in pa­tients with low­er back pain. The pro­gram met its pri­ma­ry end­point, re­duc­ing the av­er­age dai­ly pain in the af­fect­ed leg over 4 weeks fol­low­ing the ini­tial in­jec­tion at a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant rate.

 

coverage

Am­i­cus Ther­a­peu­tics (with­drawn)

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
John Crowley
ticker
ARYD
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
Unknown
Total Deal Size
Unknown
Current Price
$10.09
Announced
24 February

snapshot

Rough­ly a month af­ter Am­i­cus Ther­a­peu­tics re­port­ed an un­ex­pect­ed set­back in a gene ther­a­py planned to be spun out in a SPAC deal, the biotech and its blank check part­ner called off the merg­er in Feb­ru­ary. Am­i­cus will not spin out its gene ther­a­py unit with Arya Sci­ences Ac­qui­si­tion IV, the fourth SPAC be­long­ing to Joseph Edel­man’s Per­cep­tive, af­ter all. The two say they mu­tu­al­ly agreed to end merg­er dis­cus­sions, leav­ing Edel­man with about an­oth­er year to find a part­ner to take pub­lic. Am­i­cus CEO John Crow­ley said the de­ci­sion re­sult­ed from “cur­rent un­fa­vor­able mar­ket con­di­tions” re­lat­ed to biotech IPOs, SPACs and fol­low-on fi­nanc­ings. He al­so de­scribed an “in­creas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing” en­vi­ron­ment for stand­alone gene ther­a­py com­pa­nies — both on Nas­daq and at the FDA. The pro­posed spin-out last Sep­tem­ber had aimed to bring Am­i­cus’ Bat­ten dis­ease pro­grams to mar­ket in its own pub­lic com­pa­ny. Planned to be called Car­i­tas Ther­a­peu­tics, the com­pa­ny was sup­posed to start with two clin­i­cal can­di­dates in the dis­ease, both of which Am­i­cus said had at­tained proof-of-con­cept.

Blue Wa­ter Vac­cines

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Joseph Hernandez
ticker
BWV
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
18 February
Total Raised
$20M
Priced at
$9
Current Price
$1.07

snapshot

Blue Wa­ter does not have any pro­grams in the clin­ic just yet. It’s de­vel­op­ing sev­er­al dif­fer­ent vac­cine can­di­dates rang­ing from a uni­ver­sal flu shot to a stand­alone, long-last­ing H1 flu shot. The com­pa­ny is al­so re­search­ing a norovirus/ro­tavirus vac­cine, a norovirus/malar­ia vac­cine and a Strep­to­coc­cus pneu­mo­ni­ae vac­cine. The biotech is us­ing the mon­ey pri­mar­i­ly to ad­vance a slate of pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams to­ward IND stud­ies and boost man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties. In ad­di­tion, some of the cash will al­so be used to fund Phase I stud­ies for the flu shots and the Strep­to­coc­cus pneu­mo­ni­ae vac­cine.

coverage

TC Bio­pharm

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Bryan Kobel
ticker
TCBP
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
11 February
Total Raised
$18M
Priced at
$4.25
Current Price
$3.86

snapshot

Way back in 2017, TC Bio­pharm teamed up with blue­bird bio on an ex­per­i­men­tal pro­gram in­volv­ing CAR-en­gi­neered gam­ma delta T cells, and that’s where they’ve fo­cused the ma­jor­i­ty of their ef­forts. The com­pa­ny is plan­ning on us­ing the IPO fund­ing on a Phase II/III tri­al for the treat­ment of acute myeloid leukemia, as well as a Phase I tri­al for vi­ral in­fec­tions such as Covid-19 and se­vere flu.

coverage

Ar­cel­lx

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Chris Heery
ticker
ACLX
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
4 February
Total Raised
$124M
Priced at
$15
Current Price
$30.95

snapshot

Though Ar­cel­lx priced its IPO at the low end of its range, it had some­thing many oth­er re­cent­ly pub­lic biotechs don’t: da­ta on how its ther­a­pies per­form in hu­mans. In 2020, the com­pa­ny showed its lead BC­MA-tar­get­ing CAR-T for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma shrunk tu­mors in six out of six pa­tients, with four of them ex­pe­ri­enc­ing what’s known as strin­gent com­plete re­sponse. And at #AS­CO22, ex­pand­ed re­sults showed that of 16 pa­tients with 12-month da­ta, 13 achieved a com­plete re­sponse to Ar­cel­lx’s ther­a­py — a CR rate of 81%. While Ar­cel­lx’s BC­MA-tar­get­ed CAR-T ther­a­py would be com­ing be­hind al­ready ap­proved ones from Janssen and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, Ar­cel­lx CMO Chris Heery is not too con­cerned about the com­pe­ti­tion. He added that Ar­cel­lx will be­gin dos­ing pa­tients in its Phase II tri­al for its BC­MA-tar­get­ed CAR-T ther­a­py lat­er this year.

coverage

Nu­vec­tis Phar­ma

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Ron Bentsur
ticker
NVCT
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
4 February
Total Raised
$16M
Priced at
$5
Current Price
$7.58

snapshot

Found­ed in 2020, Nu­vec­tis Phar­ma is work­ing on push­ing two in-li­censed can­cer pro­grams in­to the clin­ic, with a lead pro­gram that’s ready for Phase I. That can­di­date, brought in from Lon­don’s In­sti­tute for Can­cer Re­search, is an in­hibitor of the heat shock fac­tor 1 path­way. The biotech’s sec­ond pro­gram comes from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh in Scot­land, with a deal signed in Au­gust 2021. It’s a can­di­date try­ing to in­hib­it the SRC and YES 1 ki­nas­es. Nu­vec­tis was found­ed by a pair of ex­ec­u­tives from Stem­line Ther­a­peu­tics and a third biotech vet­er­an, Ron Bentsur, who used to be the CEO of Uro­Gen. Bentsur owns the biggest stake in the com­pa­ny at about 26%.

coverage

Ak­ili In­ter­ac­tive

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Eddie Martucci
ticker
AKLI
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$100M
Total Deal Size
$162
Current Price
$1.08
Announced
26 January

snapshot

Ak­ili In­ter­ac­tive, mak­ers of the first FDA-ap­proved video game, rode its suc­cess­es to a SPAC deal in Jan­u­ary 2022 valu­ing the com­pa­ny at more than $1 bil­lion. But in fil­ing some of its first fi­nan­cial dis­clo­sures, Ak­ili re­vealed it has a tough road ahead to com­mer­cial prof­its. In an S-4 filed with the SEC, the com­pa­ny said it made on­ly about $377,000 in the first nine months of 2021 and in­curred more than $41.6 mil­lion in ex­pens­es over the same time pe­ri­od. The steep op­er­at­ing loss­es came af­ter Ak­ili was more than $25 mil­lion in the red for all of 2020 and lost $21.5 mil­lion in 2019. Those loss­es have raised “sub­stan­tial doubt about the Com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue as a go­ing con­cern,” Ak­ili wrote: It does not have enough cash on hand to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing for the next year. The deal is ex­pect­ed to fi­nal­ize in mid-2022, with SPAC king and tech bil­lion­aire Chamath Pal­i­hapi­tiya set to be­come chair­man of the board.

coverage

ProKid­ney

Type & Stage
SPAC: To Merge
CEO
Tim Bertram
ticker
PROK
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$250M
Total Deal Size
$825
Current Price
$6.7
Announced
18 January

snapshot

The out­spo­ken “Piped Piper of SPACs,” Chamath Pal­i­hapi­tiya, an­nounced he’d be tak­ing ProKid­ney pub­lic in Jan­u­ary 2022. A for­mer Face­book ex­ec­u­tive and co-own­er of the NBA’s Gold­en State War­riors, Pal­i­hapi­tiya launched four SPACs all tar­get­ing dif­fer­ent sec­tors of biotech in the ear­ly sum­mer of 2021. Pal­i­hapi­tiya has been a promi­nent and in­flu­en­tial fig­ure in this realm, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly launched a slate of six SPACs span­ning mul­ti­ple in­dus­tries. ProKid­ney was found­ed in 2016 but re­al­ly got go­ing at the be­gin­ning of 2019 with the $62 mil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of in­Re­gen, which was work­ing on an au­tol­o­gous — from the pa­tient — cell ther­a­py for kid­ney dis­ease. Af­ter ex­tract­ing kid­ney cells from pa­tients, re­searchers ex­pand the cells in the lab and then in­ject them back in­to pa­tients, aim­ing to re­store the kid­neys of pa­tients suf­fer­ing from CKD. Four of Pal­i­hapi­tiya’s firms have found part­ners thus far, in­clud­ing one that took fel­low bil­lion­aire Richard Bran­son’s space tourism com­pa­ny Vir­gin Galac­tic pub­lic. He’s on­ly grown his in­flu­ence since the start of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, cul­ti­vat­ing a large au­di­ence of stuck-at-home mil­len­ni­al and Gen Z re­tail in­vestors through his Twit­ter ac­count and a pop­u­lar week­ly pod­cast.

coverage

Gele­sis

Type & Stage
SPAC: Merged
CEO
Yishai Zohar
ticker
GLS
exchange
NASDAQ
SPAC Raise
$376M
Total Deal Size
$105
Current Price
$0.29
Merger Closed
14 January

snapshot

De­vel­op­ing weight-man­age­ment pills that are on the cusp of a na­tion­al roll­out, PureTech-found­ed Gele­sis an­nounced it would re­verse-merge with Cap­star Spe­cial Pur­pose Ac­qui­si­tion Corp. in Ju­ly 2021. The deal was pro­ject­ed to give Gele­sis ac­cess to the $376 mil­lion raised from the SPAC, as well as an­oth­er $100 mil­lion in PIPE fund­ing, but af­ter 98% of SPAC in­vestors pulled out, the com­pa­ny end­ed up with on­ly $105 mil­lion in gross pro­ceeds. With the sub­stan­tial de­crease in funds, Gele­sis was forced to lay off 140 con­trac­tors in Feb­ru­ary that had been hired to pro­mote its weight-loss pill Plen­i­ty. Tak­en twice a day be­fore lunch and din­ner, the $98-per-month treat­ment is de­signed to ex­pand in the stom­ach, mak­ing adults feel fuller with small­er por­tions of food. It was ap­proved in 2019. Gele­sis is the third PureTech en­ti­ty to go pub­lic af­ter Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics hit Nas­daq with a tra­di­tion­al IPO in 2019 and Vor Bio­phar­ma fol­lowed suit in ear­ly 2021.

coverage

Hill­stream Bio­Phar­ma

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Randy Milby
ticker
HILS
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
11 January
Total Raised
$15M
Priced at
$4
Current Price
$0.4

snapshot

Hill­stream has been fo­cused on fer­rop­to­sis, a type of pro­grammed cell death be­ing stud­ied for treat­ment re­sis­tant can­cers. The com­pa­ny’s most ad­vanced can­di­date is HSB-1216, an iron me­di­at­ed cell death (IM­CD) in­duc­er for sol­id tu­mors. Hill­stream aims to sub­mit an IND and start a clin­i­cal study with the drug next year.

coverage

Cin­Cor Phar­ma

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Marc de Garidel
ticker
CINC
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
7 January
Total Raised
$194M
Priced at
$16
Current Price
$12.29

snapshot

Cin­Cor Phar­ma made some noise af­ter rais­ing $143 mil­lion in a Se­ries B in Oc­to­ber 2021, and a few weeks lat­er planned a jump to Nas­daq. For­mer Ipsen chair­man and CEO Marc de Garidel had big plans with the de­but, spin­ning out from par­ent com­pa­ny Cin­Rx Phar­ma. The com­pa­ny is go­ing all in on Cin­Cor’s on­ly drug can­di­date: bax­dro­stat, or CIN-107, an oral al­dos­terone syn­thase in­hibitor that co-founders Jon Isaac­sohn and Cather­ine Pearce li­censed from Roche for $3 mil­lion back in 2019. Al­dos­terone is a hor­mone linked to in­creased blood pres­sure, and has been a tar­get of in­ter­est to treat hy­per­ten­sion. Once bax­dro­stat reach­es cer­tain mile­stones, Cin­Cor will pay Roche an­oth­er $40 mil­lion, along with an ad­di­tion­al $175 mil­lion in sales mile­stones, plus roy­al­ties. Phase II da­ta are ex­pect­ed in the lead in­di­ca­tion of treat­ment-re­sis­tant hy­per­ten­sion in the sec­ond half of 2022. It’s al­so be­ing stud­ied in un­con­trolled hy­per­ten­sion (Phase II topline ex­pect­ed 2H 2023), pri­ma­ry al­dos­tero­nism (Phase II topline ex­pect­ed 2H 2023) and pa­tients with both un­con­trolled hy­per­ten­sion and chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease (Phase II topline ex­pect­ed 2H 2023).

coverage

Amy­lyx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Justin Klee, Joshua Cohen
ticker
AMLX
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
7 January
Total Raised
$190M
Priced at
$19
Current Price
$36.93

snapshot

Amy­lyx has the en­tire ALS pa­tient com­mu­ni­ty be­hind its back, as its lead pro­gram is cur­rent­ly sit­ting be­fore the FDA to po­ten­tial­ly be­come just the third-ever ap­proved treat­ment for the uni­ver­sal­ly fa­tal dis­ease. The biotech went pub­lic back in Jan­u­ary be­fore get­ting a date with the FDA ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee in late March. Agency pan­elists rec­om­mend­ed against rec­om­mend­ing ap­proval in a slim 6-4 vote that fea­tured a near­ly two-hour long pub­lic com­ment pe­ri­od. Ob­servers are close­ly watch­ing the Amy­lyx ALS drug, dubbed AMX0035, in the wake of the Bio­gen Aduhelm fi­as­co, key­ing in on the pres­sure reg­u­la­tors are fac­ing to ap­prove the com­pound. The cen­tral is­sue of the ad­comm had to do with whether the Amy­lyx drug should be ap­proved on the ba­sis of a sin­gle ran­dom­ized tri­al, or if it should wait for Phase III da­ta to read out, like­ly in 2024. Amy­lyx re­ceived a PDU­FA de­lay on its ap­pli­ca­tion, push­ing the de­ci­sion back to Sep­tem­ber 29.

coverage

Vig­il Neu­ro­science

Type & Stage
IPO: Priced
CEO
Ivana Magovčević-Liebisch
ticker
VIGL
exchange
NASDAQ
IPO Date
7 January
Total Raised
$98M
Priced at
$14
Current Price
$12.49

snapshot

Vig­il launched back in De­cem­ber 2020 with $50 mil­lion in Se­ries A cash and a cou­ple of TREM2 ag­o­nists picked up from Am­gen af­ter it joined Big Phar­ma’s mass ex­o­dus from neu­ro­science. Then in Au­gust 2021, the biotech reeled in an­oth­er $90 mil­lion from VC in­vestors. Now the lead can­di­date, VGL101, is in a Phase I study for an in­her­it­ed con­di­tion called adult-on­set leukoen­cephalopa­thy with ax­on­al spher­oids and pig­ment­ed glia (AL­SP), which is char­ac­ter­ized by changes to cer­tain ar­eas of the brain. Pa­tients with AL­SP of­ten ex­pe­ri­ence ear­ly symp­toms like per­son­al­i­ty changes or de­pres­sion, and go on to de­vel­op de­men­tia, dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing and tremor, among oth­er symp­toms. Phase I da­ta are ex­pect­ed in the sec­ond half of 2022, and Vig­il an­tic­i­pates launch­ing a Phase II tri­al in this time­frame as well. An­oth­er TREM2 can­di­date is ex­pect­ed to reach the IND fil­ing stage for ge­net­i­cal­ly de­fined Alzheimer’s sub­pop­u­la­tions.

coverage