The first biotech IPO of 2020 is here, and it’s for a com­pa­ny found­ed by two mar­quee names in on­col­o­gy.

Cam­bridge-based Black Di­a­mond Ther­a­peu­tics filed on Fri­day for an IPO worth up to $100 mil­lion, be­com­ing the first biotech of the decade to an­nounce their in­ten­tion to go pub­lic. They’ll use their pro­ceeds to bring their new onco­gene ap­proach in­to the clin­ic.

The fact that an on­col­o­gy biotech will be the first IPO of the new decade should come as lit­tle sur­prise. The cal­en­dar may have changed but the ba­sic in­cen­tives that have dri­ven record in­vest­ment in­to and rev­enue from can­cer drugs haven’t. Last year’s first IPO — Po­sei­da Ther­a­peu­tics — was al­so a can­cer-fo­cused biotech.

The first com­pa­ny launched out of Ver­sant’s Basel-based dis­cov­ery en­gine in De­cem­ber 2018, Black Di­a­mond lever­aged a high-pro­file C-suite and emerg­ing sci­ence to rapid­ly rake in cash: Near­ly $200 mil­lion with­in a year of their emer­gence from stealth mode, in­clud­ing an $85 mil­lion Se­ries C last month.

David Ep­stein

The biotech is run by David Ep­stein and Eliz­a­beth Buck, two for­mer de­vel­op­ers of the can­cer drug Tarce­va. The tech is a form of tar­get­ed on­col­o­gy called al­losteric ther­a­pies. These ther­a­pies are sim­i­lar to oth­er onco­genic drugs, such as ki­nase in­hibitors, that in­hib­it the main bind­ing site of a pro­tein fu­el­ing can­cer. It just does so by in­hibit­ing a dif­fer­ent part of the pro­tein that may have mu­tat­ed.

Black Di­a­mond has spent over a year map­ping these mu­ta­tions, be­fore rais­ing the Se­ries C on the promise of push­ing their BDTX-189 drug for HER2 and EGFR mu­ta­tions in­to a Phase I/II tri­al.

They promise to use the bulk of their IPO pro­ceeds for the same goal, with some of the rest go­ing to a pre­clin­i­cal glioblas­toma pro­gram.

Eliz­a­beth Buck

I-Mab Bio­phar­ma

The same day as Black Di­a­mond’s fil­ing, Shang­hai-based on­col­o­gy start­up I-Mab Bio­phar­ma up­dat­ed their fil­ing with de­tailed in­for­ma­tion. They’re ex­pect­ed to be the year’s first biotech to price, on Jan­u­ary 16.

I-Mab’s an­nounce­ment came in Oc­to­ber, but the new fil­ing of­fers more de­tail in­to a com­pa­ny that hopes to be­come the first Chi­nese biotech to list on the Nas­daq ex­change since Zai Lab de­buted in 2017.

They ex­pect to price be­tween $13 and $14 per share and raise $87 mil­lion. They will use the pro­ceeds large­ly to fund a long list of clin­i­cal tri­als, while slot­ting sig­nif­i­cant por­tions for build­ing their own man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Chi­na and re­search fa­cil­i­ties in the US.

The teem­ing num­ber of as­sets has to do with I-Mab’s un­usu­al but thus-far suc­cess­ful mod­el. The com­pa­ny has spread wide­ly, li­cens­ing a long list of as­sets from more es­tab­lished biotechs. They con­duct proof-of-con­cept tri­als in the US, and then use the da­ta for tri­als in Chi­na. Once the drug is clin­i­cal­ly val­i­dat­ed in the US, I-Mab re­tains Chi­nese rights for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment and glob­al out-li­cens­ing.

Most of these as­sets are in on­col­o­gy — in­clud­ing lead mul­ti­ple myelo­ma as­set TJ202 — al­though TJ101 is a long-act­ing hor­mone for pe­di­atric growth de­fi­cien­cy and TJ301 is an IL-6 for au­toim­mune dis­or­ders.

It’s a mod­el that’s al­ready gained over $400 mil­lion in pri­vate fund­ing. Their Nas­daq bid re­flects the grow­ing im­por­tance of Chi­na, not on­ly as a bur­geon­ing mar­ket for es­tab­lished phar­ma com­pa­nies but as a grow­ing hub for drug de­vel­op­ment.

The EMA released updated recommendations today for the use of JAK inhibitors (JAKi) after reviewing data from several clinical trials that showed increased incidents of issues in certain patients who have rheumatoid arthritis and other risk factors.

The EMA noted malignancy, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), serious infections, venous thromboembolism (VTE) and mortality in some patients.