Finance Watch

Good news in the biopharma industry and the US economy gave public drug developers the boost they needed to raise cash, including Karuna’s $750m offering. Private company financings slowed during the second week of August, but Prellis and Vector BioPharma raised venture capital.

Private Company Edition: Sironax completed a $200m series B round while IDRx launched with $122m and OriCell raised $120m in series C funds, joining end-of-July $100m-plus fundraiser Carmot Therapeutics, which closed a $160m series D financing. 

Public Company Edition: MAIA launches a $10m initial public offering, the first in the US since May, but NewAmsterdam opts for the SPAC route to the stock market. Also, Legend raises $350m in a follow-on offering, Iveric obtains access to $250m in debt and Otonomy cuts costs after a Phase II failure.

Private Company Edition: The amount of venture capital raised by biopharma firms fell but individual companies grabbed a lot of cash, making for a remarkable Q2 relative to pre-pandemic times. Recent Q3 rounds includes Frontera’s $160m series B. Also, Oxford Science Enterprises added €250m to its fund.

Public Company Edition: William Blair analysts note that stock prices are rising due to a Q2 boost in dealmaking after a lull in Q1. Nevertheless, layoffs and portfolio prioritizations are ongoing, including at X4 Pharmaceuticals, but others have raised cash following good news, like Revolution Medicines.

Public Company Financings: Theravance sold its 85% interest in Trelegy royalties from GSK and Innoviva sold its 15% interest for up to $1.8bn in total. Also, ProKidney grossed $597m from its SPAC merger, Pliant raised $200m in a post-Phase IIa offering and Marinus earned $110m in a PRV sale.

Private Company Edition: As venture capital funding continues at a robust pace relative to public company financings, Knopp Biosciences and Population Health Partners launched Areteia with enough cash to fund Phase III asthma trials and Qiming revealed new VC funds totaling $2.5bn and $700m.

ARCH closed a $3bn VC fund to end the month of June while in the same week six public biopharma firms said they are cutting jobs. Even so, some publicly traded companies have been able to launch sizeable offerings, including a $450m note sale by Cytokinetics and Xenon’s $250m follow-on. 

Private Company Edition: While the tough state of financing for publicly traded drug developers continues, venture capital firms and private biopharma companies revealed billions of dollars in new VC funds and start-up financings, including $100m-plus mega-rounds for Tessa, Alladapt and ImCheck.

Public Company Edition: The stock market has been unkind to biotech firms but investors rewarded some drug developers for clinical trial successes, including Scholar Rock and Day One, which raised $205m and $172.5m, respectively. However, some SPAC deals and an IPO never got off the ground.

The biomanufacturing firm National Resilience has raised more than $2bn in venture capital and millions more in fees from government and industry contracts since 2020. Also, Code Biotherapeutics raised $75m in series A cash, Concert grossed $66.4m and Amarin is cutting US jobs. 

Private Company Edition: Biomedtracker found that 53% of financings during the first quarter were venture capital deals versus 32% in Q1 of last year. Also, Qiming closed a $260m fund, Transition Bio raised a $50m series A round, ProfoundBio completed a $70m series A+ and MycoMedica raised $60m.