The pan­dem­ic IPOs keep rolling, as Gen­er­a­tion, Avid­i­ty, Vax­cyte each claim 200M+

If it wasn’t al­ready, biotech’s pan­dem­ic IPO boom is in full swing.

Af­ter a week that saw the largest Chi­nese biotech IPO in his­to­ry and an­oth­er $154 mil­lion for a com­pa­ny that emerged on­ly last Sep­tem­ber, four dif­fer­ent biotechs raised over $200 mil­lion. Each of them up­sized their of­fer­ings or priced at the top end — or more — of their orig­i­nal range.

Col­lec­tive­ly, they raised $926 mil­lion, or an av­er­age of $231 mil­lion per com­pa­ny.

The new rais­es are part of a broad­er trend, as in­vestors have flocked to biotech stocks as is­lands of sta­bil­i­ty in an in­creas­ing­ly rocky and pan­dem­ic-strick­en stock mar­ket. Large­ly, that’s meant bal­loon­ing val­u­a­tions for pub­lic com­pa­nies, such as Mod­er­na and Vir, who are mak­ing treat­ments or vac­cines for Covid-19.

But the com­pa­nies go­ing pub­lic this week don’t have large Covid-19 pro­grams. They con­sist of a Chi­nese can­cer de­tec­tion com­pa­ny and three com­pa­nies that are still pre­clin­i­cal, a stage when it used to be rare for com­pa­nies to go pub­lic, let alone raise vast cap­i­tal. The new rounds are a con­tin­u­a­tion of that trend, glimpses of which were seen be­fore the out­break hit the US, as the mar­ket showed an ap­petite for such ear­ly-stage ven­tures.

Six pre­clin­i­cal biotechs have now raised over $150 mil­lion in 2020, com­pared with just two over the pre­vi­ous three years, ac­cord­ing to num­bers from Re­nais­sance Cap­i­tal. That in­cludes David Liu’s Beam Ther­a­peu­tics, which raised $180 mil­lion on a base pair edit­ing plat­form in Feb­ru­ary, Jim Wil­son’s Pas­sage Bio, and Ver­sant’s Black Di­a­mond Ther­a­peu­tics.

Ge­off Mc­Do­nough Gen­er­a­tion

Gen­er­a­tion Bio was the first com­pa­ny to go pub­lic this week, grab­bing $200 mil­lion in a twice-up­sized of­fer­ing. Run by Gen­zyme vet Ge­off Mc­Do­nough, it’s de­vel­op­ing gene ther­a­pies that can be de­liv­ered by lipid nanopar­ti­cles in­stead of vi­ral vec­tors. The idea is that the nanopar­ti­cles can last as long as the now-com­mon ade­no-as­so­ci­at­ed virus­es, while be­ing eas­i­er to scale and sell for less than the cur­rent mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar price tags for gene ther­a­pies.

In Jan­u­ary, the com­pa­ny raised $110 mil­lion, bring­ing their to­tal to $235 mil­lion. At the time, Mc­Do­nough told End­points News they might look for an IPO in 12 to 18 months to fund their clin­i­cal work.

Avid­i­ty Bio­sciences, an Eli Lil­ly-backed an­ti­sense biotech, priced at $14 to $16, up­sized the range to $17 to $18, and then priced at the high end of that, earn­ing $259 mil­lion in the end. The com­pa­ny works on mus­cle dis­or­ders, par­tic­u­lar­ly my­oton­ic mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy. They com­bine an­ti­sense oligonu­cleotides — an old way of drug­ging RNA — with hom­ing an­ti­bod­ies to cre­ate what they call an­ti­body oligonu­cleotides con­ju­gates. The idea is that the an­ti­body will guide the an­ti­sense to se­quences that were pre­vi­ous­ly dif­fi­cult to tar­get. Their last round was in No­vem­ber, for $100 mil­lion.

Vax­cyte filed for its IPO ex­act­ly two months af­ter it raised $110 mil­lion in a Se­ries D, and end­ed up rais­ing $249 mil­lion. At the time of the last raise, it was known as SutroVax — a holdover from its days as a spin­out of Sutro Bio­phar­ma — but they changed their name and lo­go in ad­vance of fil­ing for what was orig­i­nal­ly sten­ciled as a $100 mil­lion IPO.

There may be no bet­ter time to go pub­lic as a vac­cine com­pa­ny, and the re­turn of vac­cines to the cen­ter of pub­lic at­ten­tion may have boost­ed their over­all raise, but Vax­cyte is work­ing on a far dif­fer­ent mar­ket and type of in­oc­u­la­tion than coro­n­avirus. The com­pa­ny is try­ing to cre­ate a fol­low-up to Pre­vnar13, the Pfiz­er pneu­mo­nia vac­cine that’s earned over $30 bil­lion in one of the few block­buster vac­cine mar­kets. Vax­cyte’s lead prod­uct is meant to guard against 24 strains of bac­te­ria, in­stead of Pre­vnar’s 13, and is com­pet­ing against ex­per­i­men­tal in­oc­u­la­tions at Pfiz­er and else­where.

In the fi­nal large raise, Il­lu­mi­na-part­nered Burn­ing Rock Biotech, a DNA-se­quenc­ing based can­cer de­tec­tion com­pa­ny, earned $223 mil­lion, pric­ing a dol­lar above their orig­i­nal $13.50 to $15.50 range. They got to ring the open­ing bell to­day at the Nas­daq.

And on a small­er note, AI-fo­cused Chi­nese biotech, Lantern Phar­ma had an ever-so-slight­ly up­sized IPO. They filed for $25 mil­lion and raised $26 mil­lion.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Lat­est on ul­tra-rare dis­ease ap­proval; Pos­i­tive, if mixed, signs for Bio­gen's ALS drug; Clay Sie­gall finds a new job; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. You can now nominate someone to be highlighted in this year’s special report. Details are here.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA spells out how can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers can use one tri­al for both ac­cel­er­at­ed and full ap­provals

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

No­vo Nordisk oral semaglu­tide tri­al shows re­duc­tion in blood sug­ar, plus weight loss

Novo Nordisk is testing higher levels of its oral version of its GLP-1, semaglutide, and its type 2 diabetes trial results released today show reductions in blood sugar as well as weight loss.

In the Phase IIIb trial, Novo compared its oral semaglutide in 25 mg and 50 mg doses with the 14 mg version that’s currently the maximum approved dose. The trial looked at how the doses compared when added to a stable dose of one to three oral antidiabetic medicines in people with type 2 diabetes who were in need of an intensified treatment.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Sijmen de Vries, Pharming CEO

FDA ap­proves Pharm­ing drug for ul­tra-rare im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.

Eu­ro­pean doc­tors di­al up dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with phar­mas, but still lean to­ward in-per­son med meet­ings, study finds

As in-person sales rep access declines in the big five European countries, a corresponding uptick in virtual rep access is happening. It’s not surprising, but it does run counter to pharma companies’ assessment – along with long-held sales rep sway in Europe – that in-person access hadn’t changed.

CMI Media Group and Medscape’s recent study reports that 75% of physicians in the EU5 countries of Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK already limit engagements with pharma sales reps, and 25% of those surveyed plan to decrease time with reps.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Judge al­lows ex­pert tes­ti­mo­ny in GSK tri­al al­leg­ing Zan­tac link to can­cer

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.