If we’re looking for green shoots in 2023, then the trickle of IPOs in recent weeks is a good place to start. Mineralys Therapeutics announced a $100 million IPO earlier in the month, and now Structure Therapeutics has put the finishing touches to its own nine-figure Nasdaq offering.
The San Francisco and Shanghai-based biotech confirmed in an SEC filing today that it would be offering almost 9 million American depositary shares—representing close to 27 million ordinary shares—priced between $10 and $15 per ADS. Assuming the final price ends up in the middle of that range, the company is expecting a haul of $111.5 million, rising to $129 million if underwriters decide to buy up additional ADSs available.
Structure, which until August was known as ShouTi, is focused on G-protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs. Its lead program is an oral GLP-1R agonist, dubbed GSBR-1290, which is in a phase 1 trial for type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The biotech also has another candidate in the clinic in the form of ANPA-0073, which targets a GPCR called APJR. The therapy has already completed an early stage study in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension and Structure has plans for a phase 2 trial. In the summer, the company added an additional $33 million to an oversubscribed financing round, bringing total series B funding to $100 million.
A far more modest IPO is also in the works courtesy of Intensity Therapeutics, which is offering over 1.7 million shares of common stock at an estimated price of $4.50 apiece. If all goes to plan, the cancer-focused company expects total proceeds of $6.1 million, rising to $7.2 million if underwriters take advantage of the option to secure additional shares, according to an SEC filing.
Intensity’s only asset is INT230-6, which consists of two approved anti-cancer cytotoxic agents, cisplatin and vinblastine sulfate. A phase 1/2 trial in a range of cancers was launched in 2017, with data now being finalized ahead of a readout. There’s also an ongoing phase 2 trial of the drug as a treatment prior to surgery in early stage breast cancer.
Some of the expected proceeds from the IPO will be used to push INT230-6 into a phase 3 trial for sarcoma, as well as develop a second candidate in INT33X, which is currently being tested in mice.
Analysts will be keeping a close eye on whether IPOs pick up over the coming weeks as a sign of a potential biotech market recovery. While 2021 saw record-breaking listings, valuations began to cool toward the end of the year, with experts’ predictions of a slump in 2022 proving correct as emerging biotechs watched their peers list their tickers just to take a beating and ultimately trade well below their initial price.
Still, there were some signs the scene was beginning to heat up again later in 2022, with Third Harmonic’s $185 million IPO in late August and Prime Medicine’s $175 million offering in October being two notable examples. Mineralys’ filing came the same day that Alzheimer’s-focused Aprinoia Therapeutics inked a SPAC merger—a once popular way for biotechs to go public while avoiding the traditional IPO route.