With 46 initial public offerings in the US by drug developers so far – including recent launches by Kymera, Inhibrx and Harmony – 2020 will easily beat last year’s 50 IPOs. In follow-on offerings and VC deals, newly public Schrodinger raised $346.5m and Tango’s $50m equity financing.

Gossamer took an infrequently used path to go public during a US government shutdown that's kept the SEC from processing new offerings. Also, IPO filings (and withdrawals) and follow-on offerings continued during the shutdown, while VC deals keep up a brisk pace.

October has not been kind to biotech stocks, but that hasn't stopped drug developers from launching IPOs in the US. Also, Takeda reconfigures debt ahead of Shire deal and other offerings.

The average return for the 54 drug developers that went public in the US during first three quarters of 2018 was 13.6% as of Oct. 1 versus 16.9% as of Aug. 31 for the 47 biopharma firms that launched IPOs during the first eight months of this year. September had seven new offerings after just two in August.