Three drug de­vel­op­ers an­nounced plans to go pub­lic on Fri­day, a sign that the IPO win­dow for bio­phar­ma is wide open.

First up is Daly City, CA-based Spruce Bio­sciences. They filed for an $86 mil­lion IPO to de­vel­op their pipeline for clas­sic con­gen­i­tal adren­al hy­per­pla­sia (CAH). Cur­rent­ly, on­ly steroids are avail­able to treat the con­di­tion, which af­fects the adren­al glands above the kid­neys. Spruce’s tildac­er­font, a non-steroidal op­tion, is in a Phase IIb tri­al in adults with clas­sic CAH and poor dis­ease con­trol. The com­pa­ny ex­pects a topline read­out here in the next 12 to 15 months. The small mol­e­cule is al­so in a Phase IIb study in adults with clas­sic CAH and good dis­ease con­trol. Spruce ex­pects topline da­ta here in the first half of 2022.

The com­pa­ny says IPO mon­ey will help fund op­er­a­tions for at “least the next 12 months.” And they plan fur­ther R&D work to po­ten­tial­ly treat chil­dren with clas­sic CAH and oth­er rare en­docrine dis­or­ders.

Spruce raked in an $88 mil­lion Se­ries B round in Feb­ru­ary, led by Omega Funds and Abing­worth. So far, the com­pa­ny has blown through $42.9 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to its S-1 fil­ing. Oth­er in­di­ca­tions could al­so be in tildac­er­font’s fu­ture. “In ad­di­tion to ad­dress­ing these un­met needs in CAH, tildac­er­font’s mech­a­nism of ac­tion could al­so be rel­e­vant in pa­tients suf­fer­ing oth­er ab­nor­mal­i­ties of the hy­po­thal­a­m­ic-pi­tu­itary adren­al ax­is, in­clud­ing non-clas­sic CAH, Cush­ing’s Dis­ease, and poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome,” Wiebke Arlt, di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of Me­tab­o­lism and Sys­tems Re­search at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Birm­ing­ham, said in Feb­ru­ary.

Next up we have Shat­tuck and Kro­nos, who both filed for $100 mil­lion IPOs to fo­cus on can­cer treat­ments.

Austin, TX-based Shat­tuck says it’s de­vel­op­ing a new class of ag­o­nist redi­rect­ed check­points, or ARCs. Its lead can­di­date, SL-172154, is de­signed to in­hib­it CD47 and stim­u­late CD40, and is cur­rent­ly in a Phase I tri­al for ovar­i­an can­cer. Ini­tial da­ta are ex­pect­ed in the sec­ond half of next year.

The com­pa­ny al­so plans to be­gin a sec­ond Phase I tri­al in pa­tients with cu­ta­neous squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma or head and neck squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma, from which dose-es­ca­la­tion da­ta would be avail­able in the sec­ond half of 2022. Their Take­da-part­nered can­di­date, SL-279252, is in a Phase I tri­al for ad­vanced sol­id tu­mors and lym­phoma. Dose-es­ca­la­tion da­ta is com­ing in the sec­ond half of next year, Shat­tuck an­nounced.

Back in June, Shat­tuck reeled in a $118 mil­lion Se­ries B from Red­mile Group and over 10 oth­er in­vestors. It in­tends to use the IPO funds to push SL-172154 from Phase I to Phase II, and de­vel­op ad­di­tion­al can­di­dates. So far, the com­pa­ny has burned through $48.3 mil­lion.

“Longer-term, we are pur­su­ing ad­di­tion­al dis­ease ar­eas, in­clud­ing au­toim­mune dis­eases, where our dual-sided fu­sion pro­tein plat­forms may pro­vide ad­van­tages over cur­rent treat­ment modal­i­ties,” the biotech said in its S-1.

Then there’s Nor­bert Bischof­berg­er’s Kro­nos. The 30-year Gilead vet joined Kro­nos in 2018, pitch­ing in to an $18 mil­lion seed round to launch the biotech. Af­ter an­nounc­ing $155 mil­lion in pri­vate fi­nanc­ing in Au­gust, Kro­nos hit the $278 mil­lion mark.

In Ju­ly, Kro­nos picked up en­tosple­tinib — a drug that was shelved when Bischof­berg­er was head of R&D at Gilead. Kro­nos forked over a “few mil­lion” in cash and a slice of eq­ui­ty to get it and an­oth­er SYK in­hibitor, lan­raplenib, the CEO told End­points News fol­low­ing the deal. And now, the biotech plans on us­ing IPO pro­ceeds to fund a reg­is­tra­tional Phase II/III study of en­tosple­tinib in com­bi­na­tion with in­duc­tion chemother­a­py (IC) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) pa­tients with NPM1 mu­ta­tions. That would in­clude a $29 mil­lion mile­stone pay­ment to Gilead.

The com­pa­ny is al­so look­ing to con­duct a Phase I/II tri­al of its can­di­date KB-0742 for the treat­ment of ad­vanced sol­id tu­mors, and to fur­ther de­vel­op its SYK and CDK9 pro­grams. Its ac­cu­mu­lat­ed deficit is $39 mil­lion.

“Sub­ject to clear­ance of an In­ves­ti­ga­tion­al New Drug ap­pli­ca­tion (IND) for KB-0742, which we plan to sub­mit in the fourth quar­ter of 2020, we plan to ini­ti­ate a Phase I/II clin­i­cal tri­al in pa­tients with ad­vanced sol­id tu­mors in 2021,” the S-1 states.

Neurologist and King’s College London professor Christopher Shaw has been researching neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and collaborating with drugmakers for the last 25 years in the hopes of pushing new therapies forward. But unfortunately, none of those efforts have come anywhere close to fruition.

“So, you know, after 20 years in the game, I said, ‘Let’s try and do it ourselves,’” he told Endpoints News. 

Discovery Life Sciences has acquired what claims to be the Maryland-based host of the world’s largest hepatocyte inventory, known as IVAL, to help researchers select more effective and safer drug candidates in the future.

The combined companies will now serve a wider range of drug research and development scientists, according to Albert Li, who founded IVAL in 2004 and is set to join the Discovery leadership team as the CSO of pharmacology and toxicology.