There was a time af­ter the 2008 crash that biotech IPOs were about as pop­u­lar as snow in March. But from 2013 through 2015 gen­er­al­ist in­vestors got over their fears and jumped in­to one of the hottest stock games on the plan­et. Funds chased each oth­er for huge re­turns. CEOs be­came overnight mil­lion­aires.

Now the mar­ket pen­du­lum has swung back as the bears pushed aside the bulls. But that doesn’t mean that the new ice age has be­gun, ei­ther.

With H1 com­ing to an end to­mor­row, Nas­daq has count­ed 14 biotech IPOs that col­lec­tive­ly raked in $878 mil­lion, a much re­duced fig­ure from the $4 bil­lion raised in 2015 from 42 biotech IPOs they tracked. And it was lit­tle com­pared to the 61 IPOs that raised $4.3 bil­lion dur­ing the go-go days of 2014.

That’s not too sur­pris­ing, giv­en the gale force winds that have been howl­ing in the biotech sec­tor over the last 6 months. A lot of good com­pa­nies have seen their stock prices fall by half. A hint of bad news now can evis­cer­ate stocks in sec­onds, and there are a host of com­pa­nies that are close to or in pen­ny stock ter­ri­to­ry.

What still draws a crowd on Wall Street? Cer­tain­ly gene edit­ing. If you look over the list of H1 IPOs Nas­daq of­fer­ered me, you’ll see that Ed­i­tas and In­tel­lia scored in the top ranks of new IPOs. That’s why CRISPR Ther­a­peu­tics has been set­ting the stage for an S-1 that’s al­most cer­tain­ly go­ing to shoot for the stars.

Chi­na’s BeiGene got the ball rolling with the biggest of­fer­ing of the year. But with more and more biotechs hang­ing back to wait for a sun­nier in­vest­ment cli­mate, it’s not un­usu­al to see plen­ty of dis­counts on share prices.

There are a cou­ple of biotech IPOs in the queue this week, Sy­ros Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Gem­phire Ther­a­peu­tics, which are to­geth­er hunt­ing about $100 mil­lion more.

The mu­sic hasn’t died in biotech, but it’s not near­ly as loud and ur­gent as the hit tunes from 2013-2015. — John Car­roll, fol­low me @John­Cendpts

H1 2016 IPOs

2015 IPOs

2014 IPOs

→ Weeks after winning EU approval to start marketing dapagliflozin as Forxiga, AstraZeneca has racked up another OK for a triplet combo involving the SGLT2 diabetes drug. Named Qtrilmet, the pill combines Forxiga with the DPP-4 inhibitor Onglyza (saxagliptin) and the bedrock drug metformin in a modified-release format. That 3-in-1 approach proved superior in reducing average blood glucose levels to a number of other dual combinations across 5 Phase III trials, including Forxiga plus metformin, Onglyza with metformin, or glimepiride with metformin.

As is custom, an EMA panel on Friday issued its weekly recommendations on marketing applications submitted by drug developers. This week, the agency backed the use of five new therapies — including two Novartis drugs — but issued no negative reviews.

Novartis’ S1P drug for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS) drug, Mayzent (known chemically as siponimod), which was approved by the FDA in March — has been given the nod by the EMA. The Swiss drugmaker already sells its other MS drug, Gilenya, in both regions.

The folks behind Atomwise’s spinout X-37 like to think in cosmological metaphors, and you can think of their AI drug development model as probes sent into space from a central station. That station just got $14.5 million in Series A funding from DCVC Bio, Alpha Intelligence Capital and Hemi Ventures to back those missions.

X-37 uses Atomwise’s AI platform to identify drug targets and – unlike the parent company, which largely sticks to computers  – bring those into a wet lab and preclinical testing.  In addition to AI professionals, it’s led in by part by drug developers from Velocity Pharmaceutical Development.

→ Abbott Laboratories has named a successor to CEO Miles White after he announced that he was stepping down in March after 21 years of service. Robert Ford, the company’s COO and president, will take the helm. Ford is known for his work in the $25 billion merger between St. Jude Medical into Abbott in January 2017. White will remain with the company as executive chairman of the board. 

→ After snapping up Novartis’ Swiss facility, Novartis Center of Excellence, in July, Lonza has announced that their CEO, Marc Funk, is hitting the exit for “personal reasons.” Funk has been the CEO of the company for less than a year — brought onto the company back in March. In the meantime, chairman Albert Baehny will serve as interim CEO. 

A month after posting positive top-line data from their first Phase III trial of the IL-17A/17F inhibitor bimekizumab, Belgium’s UCB says they’ve added more upbeat results from their second late-stage test in moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

That leaves the company on track for regulatory submissions in the middle of next year, says CMO Iris Loew-Friedrich.
Their drug beat out a placebo on the co-primaries — a 90% improvement in PASI 90 (the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index) and Investigator Global Assessment (IGA) response of clear or almost clear (IGA 0/1) at week 16, compared to placebo. Investigators also boasted of hitting some key secondaries.
UCB is angling to enter an increasingly crowded market space.
In their first of 3 Phase III studies for bimekizumab, researchers touted top-line wins on statistically significant results on clearing plaque psoriasis, including a victory over J&J’s IL-23 contender Stelara on key endpoints. The drug targets both IL-17A and IL-17F, a modification on the IL-17A strategy laid out for Taltz (Eli Lilly) and Cosentyx (Novartis). And the new group also includes J&J’s Tremfya and AbbVie’s Skyrizi.

Social image: UCB