Siddhartha Mukherjee (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Vor leads a new pack of IPOs to price, con­tin­u­ing steady stream of com­pa­nies mak­ing leap to the Nas­daq

Six of the 10 biotechs that were ex­pect­ed to price their IPOs this week have now of­fi­cial­ly made the jump on­to the Nas­daq, con­tin­u­ing a record pace dat­ing back to 2020.

Vor Bio­phar­ma, Sid­dhartha Mukher­jee’s cell ther­a­py start­up, of­fi­cial­ly priced its 9,828,017 shares of com­mon stock Fri­day at $18 per share, rais­ing $176.9 mil­lion. Vor’s IPO, trad­ing un­der the tick­er $VOR, will close Feb. 9, with Gold­man Sachs, Ever­core ISI, Bar­clays and Stifel op­er­at­ing as bookrun­ners.

Vor said in ear­li­er SEC fil­ings that it would use the IPO fil­ing to ad­vance the two com­po­nents of its plat­form: A CAR-T for AML and a ge­net­i­cal­ly en­gi­neered stem cell trans­plant that makes the CAR-T safer, by re­mov­ing from healthy cells the pro­tein it tar­gets. Al­so of note, Vor ex­ceed­ed both its ini­tial com­pa­ny shares and the es­ti­mat­ed price point it list­ed in ear­li­er fil­ings.

Join­ing Vor this week was Lan­dos Bio­phar­ma, the Chris Garabe­di­an-backed oral au­toim­mune com­pa­ny, and Evax­ion Biotech, a Den­mark-head­quar­tered com­pa­ny us­ing AI im­munother­a­pies to tar­get can­cer and in­fec­tious dis­eases.

Lan­dos raised the sec­ond most of the three new Nas­daq ad­di­tions, pric­ing its 6,250,000 com­mon shares at $16 per share for an ini­tial haul of $100 mil­lion. Lan­dos’ IPO, un­der the tick­er $LABP, will close on Feb. 8 with JP Mor­gan, Jef­feries and SVB Leerink as the bookrun­ners. Lan­dos will of­fer un­der­writ­ers a 30-day op­tion of buy­ing an­oth­er 937,500 com­mon shares at the $16 price point.

Lan­dos’ of­fer­ing will be one to keep an eye on, as ini­tial fil­ings in­di­cat­ed a key fo­cus mov­ing for­ward will be its lead mol­e­cule BT-11, which is now fo­cused on ul­cer­a­tive col­i­tis and Crohn’s dis­ease but missed on all its pri­ma­ry end­points in IBD dur­ing a Phase II proof-of-con­cept study.

And Evax­ion will of­fer 3,000,000 shares at a price of $10 per share af­ter rais­ing $30 mil­lion, the com­pa­ny said. Trad­ing un­der the tick­er $EVAX, the IPO will close on Feb 9 with un­der­writ­ers hav­ing a 30-day op­tion of snap­ping up an­oth­er 450,000 ADSs at the IPO price point. Op­pen­heimer & Co. is op­er­at­ing as the sole bookrun­ner on the deal.

Ear­ly fil­ings show that Evax­ion plans on us­ing the IPO to fund four dif­fer­ent pro­grams in its port­fo­lio —most no­tably its lead can­di­date EVX-01, a per­son­al im­munother­a­py that us­es an AI plat­form to iden­ti­fy the best pro­tein tar­gets in each pa­tient. It’s in Phase I/IIa for three dif­fer­ent can­cers, where it’s be­ing test­ed in com­bo with PD-1 block­ers.

For on­go­ing track­ing of biotech IPOs in 2021, check out End­points News’ data­base here.

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.

Andy Plump, Takeda R&D chief (Jeff Rumans for Endpoints News)

What kind of PhI­Ib da­ta is worth $4B cash? Take­da’s Andy Plump has some thoughts on that

A few months back, when Takeda caused jaws to drop with its eye-watering $4 billion cash upfront for a mid-stage TYK2 drug from Nimbus, it had already taken a deep dive on the solid Phase IIb data Nimbus had assembled from its dose-ranging study in psoriasis.

Now, it’s rolling that data out, eager to demonstrate what inspired the global biopharma to go long in a neighboring, but new, disease arena for the pipeline. And the most avid students of the numbers will likely be at Bristol Myers Squibb, who will have a multi-year head start on pioneering the TYK2 space with Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) as Takeda makes its lunge for best-in-class status.

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

No­vo Nordisk re­mains un­der UK scruti­ny as MHRA con­ducts its own re­view in 'in­cred­i­bly rare' case

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is now reviewing Novo Nordisk’s marketing violation that resulted in its loss of UK trade group membership last week. Novo Nordisk was suspended on Thursday from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) for two years after an investigation by its regulatory arm found the pharma broke its conduct rules.

MHRA said on Tuesday that its review of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) investigation is standard practice. An MHRA spokesperson emphasized in an email to Endpoints News that the situation with Novo Nordisk is “incredibly rare” while also noting ABPI took “swift and proportionate action.”

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA in­di­cates will­ing­ness to ap­prove Bio­gen ALS drug de­spite failed PhI­II study

Ahead of Wednesday’s advisory committee hearing to discuss Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen, the FDA appeared open to approving the drug, newly released briefing documents show.

Citing the need for flexibility in a devastating disease like ALS, regulators signaled a willingness to consider greenlighting tofersen based on its effect on a certain protein associated with ALS despite a failed pivotal trial. The documents come after regulatory flexibility was part of the same rationale the agency expressed when approving an ALS drug last September from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, indicating the FDA’s openness to approving new treatments for the disease.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA warns Proc­ter & Gam­ble over NyQuil la­bel's in­gre­di­ent list­ings

The FDA on Tuesday released a warning letter sent earlier this month to the Mason, OH-based site of Procter & Gamble Manufactura, raising questions about the list of ingredients on the label and in the electronic filing.

The warning says that for P&G’s over-the-counter Vicks Nyquil Severe Hot Remedy Cold and Flu Plus Congestion, there’s a “mismatched” list of active ingredients between the labeling and the electronic listing file. The listing file for the active ingredients did not match the active ingredients in the electronic file.

FTC says patent bat­tle over Parkin­son's drug could have 'sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tion­s' for pa­tients

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.

Mar­ket­ingRx roundup: What could a US Tik­Tok ban mean for phar­ma? Pfiz­er, Lil­ly lead phar­ma March Mad­ness ad­ver­tis­ers

Just as pharma marketers finally make moves into TikTok, the threat of a US ban on the social media channel is now looming. Already banned on federal employee phones by an initial Congressional act, more bills and maybe bans are on the way. With rare bipartisan agreement, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would give the US president the power to ban TikTok (although not mentioned by name) and other foreign-owned technology platforms that represent a security threat to the US.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Chat­G­PT with phar­ma da­ta de­buts for med­ical meet­ings, be­gin­ning with AACR

What do you get when you combine ChatGPT generative AI technology with specific pharma and clinical datasets? A time-saving tool that can answer questions about medical conference abstracts and clinical findings in seconds in one new application from ZoomRx called FermaGPT.

ZoomRx is debuting a public version of its generative AI product specifically for medical conferences beginning this week for the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting that runs April 14-19.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Vipin Garg, Altimmune CEO

Al­tim­mune’s shares halved af­ter in­ter­im look at PhII weight loss drug da­ta

Altimmune’s attempt to catch up to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs hit an investor snag Tuesday after the biotech shared interim Phase II weight loss data.

The Maryland biotech’s pemvidutide is a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist meant to activate GLP-1 receptors to squash appetite and glucagon to ramp up energy use. The 2.4 mg dose showed a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 9.7% at week 24 of 48, which Jefferies analysts said would be comparable to Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide (Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (Mounjaro).

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.