Puretech-backed Karuna makes Nas­daq de­but with $89M IPO

Bet­ting on the po­ten­tial of two old­er drugs to fight Alzheimer’s and schiz­o­phre­nia — Boston-based Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics has priced its up­sized ini­tial pub­lic of­fer­ing in the mid­dle of the range, rais­ing gross pro­ceeds of about $89 mil­lion.

The com­pa­ny, which will de­but on the Nas­daq un­der the sym­bol “$KRTX” on Fri­day, is work­ing on the hy­poth­e­sis that a com­bi­na­tion of mus­carinic acetyl­choline re­cep­tor ag­o­nist xanome­line — an Eli Lil­ly $LLY castoff — and tro­spi­um chlo­ride, an FDA-ap­proved mus­carinic re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist to­geth­er will make an adept an­tipsy­chot­ic.

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