Stealth Bio may be re­think­ing its low-pro­file ap­proach to an IPO.

The com­pa­ny just launched its ini­tial of­fer­ing, pric­ing 6.5 mil­lion shares for $MI­TO at $12 — the low end of the range — and rais­ing $78 mil­lion for its work on a pipeline of drugs fo­cused on mi­to­chon­dr­i­al dis­eases af­ter ap­ply­ing for an IPO in Hong Kong that nev­er ma­te­ri­al­ized. 

Morn­ing­side vet­er­an Ree­nie Mc­Carthy — a lawyer by train­ing — is in charge of the en­ter­prise while Mark Bam­berg­er, a for­mer car­dio and meta­bol­ic re­search chief at Pfiz­er, is CSO.

Ree­nie Mc­Carthy

The team at Stealth may have re­mained un­der the radar, but they’ve burned through $400 mil­lion work­ing on new ther­a­pies re­lat­ed to mi­to­chon­dr­i­al dys­func­tion. Mi­to­chon­dria are the pow­er­hous­es of the cell, turn­ing fu­el in­to en­er­gy. And when that goes wrong, it can spur a host of dis­eases, run­ning from rare ge­net­ic con­di­tions to broad is­sues re­lat­ed to ag­ing.

Mark Bam­berg­er

The biotech has a Phase III pro­gram all lined up and ready to read out lat­er in the year, look­ing for promis­ing da­ta on elamipre­tide on pri­ma­ry mi­to­chon­dr­i­al my­opa­thy. The biotech has 4 clin­i­cal pro­grams un­der­way, with the ear­li­est tar­get­ing dry, age-re­lat­ed mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion.

Morn­ing­side Ven­tures owned the li­on’s share of the eq­ui­ty go­ing in­to the IPO, with 95.3% of the stock.

David Livingston, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Med scientist who helped shine a light on some of the key molecular drivers of breast and ovarian cancer, died unexpectedly last Sunday.

One of the senior leaders at Dana-Farber during his nearly half century of work there, Livingston was credited with shedding light on the genes that regulate cell growth, with insights into inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that helped lay the scientific foundation for targeted therapies and earlier detection that have transformed the field.

Three Senate Democrats are backing an FDA plan to require mandatory prescriber education for opioids as overdose deaths have risen sharply over the past decade, with almost 97,000 American opioid-related overdose deaths in the past year alone.

While acknowledging a decline in overall opioid analgesic dispensing in recent years, the FDA said it’s reconsidering the need for mandatory prescriber training through a REMS given the current situation with overdoses, and is seeking input on the aspects of the opioid crisis that mandatory training could potentially mitigate.

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It took seven months from exiting “quiet mode” for Ventyx Biosciences to land its very own stock ticker, raising $165 million in venture funds along the way.

Now, after pricing a massive $151.5 million IPO, the Encinitas, CA-based biotech is gunning for Phase II.

Ventyx priced close to 9.5 million shares at $16 apiece on Wednesday, the midpoint of its $15 to $17 range. CEO Raju Mohan filed the S-1 papers at the end of September, just over a week after unveiling a $114 million Series B round. He penciled in the standard figure of $100 million at first, likely knowing that in the last year, it’s been common for biotechs to raise much more than those initial estimates.

Just as Avoro Capital’s campaign to derail Merck’s proposed $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron gains steam, Bristol Myers Squibb is leaning in with some hefty counterweight.

The pharma giant is planning to tender its Acceleron shares, Bloomberg reported, which add up to a sizable 11.5% stake. Based on the offer price, the sale would net Bristol Myers around $1.3 billion.

To complete its deal, Merck needs a majority of shareholders to agree to sell their shares.