4 Biotechnology IPOs in July

It may be hard to imagine the impact new biotech companies may make with the vast landscape of established biotech companies, but each new technology or product candidate brings a new opportunity for success.

For an industry somewhat hidden from the negative media attention around pharmaceuticals and pricing, the success of biotech companies rivals that of pharmaceuticals in many ways.

These new companies to the public market offer investors a new range of opportunities for every stage of developing biotech companies.

Immuno-oncology has been an emerging market for years, but these and other biotech companies are pushing past this market to ones such as Red Cell Therapies (RCTs), oncolytic immunotherapies and more.

Here, the Investing News Network (INN) is taking a look at what investors need to know about biotech companies that entered the public market in July. The following companies were taken from NASDAQ’s list of priced IPOs for last month.

The list includes all IPOs made on the NASDAQ global markets and New York Stock Exchange. All figures are quoted in US dollars and prices were taken from Google Finance as of market close August 7, 2018. The companies below are listed by date of priced public offering.

1. Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ:RUBY)

Market cap: $1.76 billion; current share price: $21.77

First on our list of biotech IPOs in July is Rubius, a company pioneering a new class of ready-to-use cellular therapies called RCTs. The company designed a proprietary platform to genetically engineer and culture RCTs which are selective and potent.

Rubius priced its IPO on July 17, and expected to receive gross proceeds of $241.1 million. Since this announcement, the company acquired a new manufacturing facility to produce RCT. Through 2020, the company plans to invest up to $95 million and up to $155 million over a five-plus year period into the facility.

2. Allkos (NASDAQ:ALLK)

Market cap: $1.62 billion; current share price: $39.85

This clinical stage company is developing therapeutic antibodies that selectively targets immunomodulatory receptors on the surface of immune effector cells with allergic, inflammatory and proliferative diseases. The company’s initial clinical focus is eosinophilic gastritis, an inflammatory disease in the gastrointestinal tract.

Allkos priced its public offering on July 19 with over 7.13 million shares at $18.00 per share. This brought in the company $128.4 million in total gross proceeds.

3. Replimune (NASDAQ:REPL)

Market cap: $488.17 million; current share price: $15.83

Founded in 2015, this company is working on oncolytic immunotherapies to treat cancer. The company has three product candidates with just one in Phase 1 clinical trial, RP1, whereas the others are still in preclinical development.

The ongoing Phase 1 trial with RP1 is to treat advanced solid tumors while two Phase 2 trials are set to begin in the first half of 2019 for metastatic melanoma—one tested with nivolumab and the other with cemiplimab. Replimune’s IPO was priced at $100.5 million, also on July 19.

4. Provention Bio (NASDAQ:PRVB)

Market cap: $130.73 million; current share price: $3.55

Another clinical-stage company, Provention, is focusing on developing drugs on the prevention of interception of immune-mediated disease. The company’s pipeline holds exclusively licensed drugs in every stage of development from preclinical to Phase 3. Drugs are licensed from the likes of Janssen, MacroGenics and more.

The company priced its IPO at $65.5 million with over 16.3 million shares. The company had less than one million in total expenses for the IPO, at over $934,000.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle Lakusta, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.