Only 25 more initial public offerings are needed for 2021 to beat 2020’s record-breaking 86 IPOs. However, the average return for this year’s offerings is just 1.1% as of 1 July versus 11% at the end of the first quarter.

Public Company Edition: The pace of US initial public offerings slowed a bit in April and May but could ramp back up in June as biopharma investor sentiment rebounds. Also, drug developers continue to go public via SPAC mergers, most recently Valo Health with a $2.8bn post-deal valuation.

The concept of a parent company with operating subsidiaries is becoming increasing common in biotech. The first to do it, Daphne Zohar, who co-founded PureTech back in 2005, tells Scrip how the company has made that model work.

Following early investor conversations, Laevoroc Oncology has split its leading products into three independent subsidiaries to off-set risk and provide greater choice to future partners. While there is no underlying platform technology, CEO Thomas Mehrling believes the subsidiaries all include potential “game-changing medicines.”