Financing

Public Company Edition: This year is just six initial public offerings away from matching 2020’s record-breaking total of 86 biopharma IPOs in the US. Also, Idorsia raised $662.5m through the sale of convertible bonds and Cytokinetics closed a $316.3m follow-on offering. 

The German biotech has raised a significant sum to advance its T-cell therapies for solid tumors developed using its transgenic mouse technology platform.

South Korean pharma HK inno.N’s $500m IPO has drawn strong interest with subscriptions from institutional investors marking a record high. The IPO should help it speed up development of cell and gene therapies and beef up its vaccines business.

Artios Pharma rides the wave of DDR enthusiasm following the recent signing of big pharma partnerships with a financing to bring its first-in-class cancer treatments into the clinic.

Both Nasdaq- and Hong Kong-listed shares in Chinese health-related companies have been free falling with heavy volumes, after foreign investors spooked by China's general crackdown on the tech sector rushed to exit. The two-day sell-off shows high uncertainty and investors' anxiety over the regulatory overreach but underlying fundamentals still seem strong.

IPO Edition: Caribou, AbSci and HCW launched initial public offerings, but three firms that were expected to go public during the week of 19-23 July did not, raising the question of whether investors are beginning to pull back from biopharma offerings.

Emerging Company Profile: Backed by investors including Novo Holdings, HealthCap and RA Capital Management, Hemab Therapeutics is bringing together strong technology and deep expertise to ‘leapfrog’ treatment for several rare bleeding and thrombosis disorders into the 21st century.

Sweden-based Anocca AB will use a just completed $47m Series B financing to advance its industrialized cellular biology platform and pipeline of TCR-T cellular therapies into Phase I/IIa oncology clinical trials, its CEO tells Scrip. 

Private Company Edition: Amylyx will use its new cash to run a Phase III trial and submit applications seeking EU and Canadian approvals of AMX0035, but US filing plans based on prior Phase II/III data are less clear. Also, three VC firms raised new funds targeting biopharma and other investments.

Public Company Edition: Three $100m-plus US initial public offerings launched on 15 July after two smaller biopharma IPOs earlier in the month. Also, Gelesis announced a SPAC merger, Brii and Amniotics launched ex-US IPOs, and Intellia, Cerevel and Kymera priced large follow-on offerings. 

Several companies have recently raised large amounts of money from venture capital as well as potentially through partnerships for next-generation capsid technology.

Wugen has worked on its platform in stealth mode while co-founders at Washington University in St. Louis tested initial product WU-NK-101 in AML. Its new funding will support company-sponsored trials.