en.Wedoany.com Reported - Parabilis Medicines (Nasdaq: PBLS) became the largest IPO in drug developer history last week through its pricing, raising a total of $770.5 million in an upsized offering, adding another chapter to a historic year for the biotechnology sector.
On Wednesday, the company began public trading after issuing 33.5 million shares of common stock at $20 per share, with shares surging 58% from the IPO price to close at $31.60 on the first full trading day. The stock then fell 4% on Thursday to close at $30.31, and dropped another 10% on Friday to close at $27.26, ending the week's trading.
The day prior, Parabilis announced the completion of its IPO, including the full exercise of the underwriters' 30-day option to purchase an additional 5.025 million shares at the IPO price. This added $100.5 million to the initial $670 million in gross proceeds, increasing net proceeds by $93.5 million. According to the final prospectus, combined with the $618.2 million in net proceeds from the initial IPO, total proceeds from the offering reached $711.7 million.
The final IPO pricing was above the initially set range of $17 to $19 per share. The company originally planned to offer 25 million shares, later increased the offering to 33.3 million shares, added another 200,000 shares, and ultimately completed the issuance.
Parabilis' IPO surpassed the $625 million IPO of Kailera Therapeutics (Nasdaq: KLRA) in April, which had set the all-time record for a US biotechnology company, exceeding Moderna's (Nasdaq: MRNA) $604 million offering in December 2018.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Parabilis is a developer of drugs and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting historically undruggable protein targets, based on stabilized helical peptides or Helicons. After a decade of Helicon drug discovery, the company has generated a proprietary dataset containing millions of data points on hundreds of thousands of Helicons across dozens of drug-like properties.
Ben Zercher, Senior Biotech and Pharma Analyst at PitchBook, commented that unlike Kailera (which went public after being founded in 2024 and rapidly accumulating private capital), Parabilis took a longer and non-linear path. The company was founded in 2015 as FogPharma to commercialize technology developed and licensed from the lab of Dr. Gregory Verdine (co-founder and CEO from 2015-2023), a Harvard researcher and serial entrepreneur. Zercher noted that while the company completed six rounds of venture financing, its valuation faced volatility in the post-pandemic period—a time when private biotech companies struggled—along with leadership changes and a rebranding from FogPharma to Parabilis in 2024.
Following the name change, the company gained momentum with its lead candidate zolucatetide (formerly FOG-001)—a stabilized peptide built on the company's Helicon platform. According to the company, Zolucatetide is the first and only drug to directly inhibit the elusive β-catenin:TCF interaction.
Parabilis plans to use approximately $150 million of the IPO proceeds to continue advancing the clinical development of zolucatetide in desmoid tumors, including continuing dose expansion and initiating a Phase III registration trial to obtain top-line data. About $120 million will be used to continue dose escalation and expansion of the drug in familial adenomatous polyposis, hepatocellular carcinoma (the most common primary liver cancer), and other rare tumors, with the goal of collecting data to support registration trials. The largest portion of proceeds (approximately $190 million) is allocated to advancing other pipeline programs—including an ETS-related gene (ERG) protein degrader, an active-state allosteric androgen receptor (AR ON), and a β-catenin degrader—to obtain Phase I clinical data. Remaining proceeds will be used for the continued evolution of the Helicon platform and general corporate purposes, including additional development work, working capital, and operating expenses.
Zolucatetide received FDA Fast Track designation last year and Orphan Drug designation in March. In January, Parabilis completed a $305.2 million Series F crossover financing by selling 49,518,175 shares to multiple investors at $6.1644 per share, generating $304.5 million in net proceeds. As of March 31, Parabilis held $329.039 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter.
According to PitchBook data, Parabilis is the 15th biotechnology or pharmaceutical company to go public in 2026 to date, collectively raising $12.11 billion. For the full year 2025, biotech and pharma companies conducted 15 IPOs, raising a combined $10.49 billion—an increase from $8.83 billion (33 IPOs) in 2024. Among companies that went public this year, seven have seen their share prices rise since their initial offering, with Veradermics (NYSE: MANE) up 466%, closing at $96.24 on Friday for the dermatology and aesthetic treatment developer.
Zercher added that with the biotech window reopening, the number of IPOs reflects a backlog of high-quality companies that continued building during the biotech funding trough, rather than a wave of hype. Parabilis also raised approximately $75 million through a concurrent private placement to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, selling 4,166,666 shares at $18 per share (90% of the IPO price). The company filed its initial IPO application on May 19, one day after signing a strategic research collaboration with Regeneron worth up to over $2.3 billion to discover and develop the first five drug candidates, covering "antibody-Helicon conjugates" (a novel type of ADC). Regeneron agreed to pay Parabilis $50 million upfront to initiate the collaboration.
This upfront payment, combined with IPO proceeds and the company's existing cash and cash equivalents, will be sufficient to support operations through the second half of 2029. Parabilis reported a net loss of $45.316 million in the first quarter, an 18% increase from $38.326 million in the first quarter of 2025; last year's net loss was $145.889 million, up nearly 24% from $117.914 million in 2024. The company has not yet reported any revenue. The accumulated deficit grew 8% in the first quarter, from $541.504 million at the end of 2025 to $586.82 million. To fund operations, as of March 31, the company had raised a total of $876.8 million, including $811.8 million from the sale of convertible preferred stock, $15 million in term loan borrowings, and $50 million in Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs). Leerink Partners, BofA Securities, Evercore ISI, and Guggenheim Securities served as active bookrunners for Parabilis' IPO, with LifeSci Capital acting as a passive bookrunner.
Additionally, Propanc Biopharma (Nasdaq: PPCB) shares surged 80% from $1.35 to $2.43 on Thursday, after the Australian developer of therapies for pancreatic, ovarian, and colorectal cancers approved a stock repurchase plan authorizing the company to buy back up to $5 million of its common stock. CEO James Nathanielsz stated that management believes the company is entering a transformative phase, citing the upcoming clinical entry of Propanc's primary asset PRP (a first-in-class therapy designed to treat and prevent metastatic cancer in solid tumors) with a Phase Ib first-in-human pivotal study in 30 to 40 advanced cancer patients, as well as the company's efforts in publishing key scientific data, filing patentable discoveries, and establishing partnerships with contract research organizations (CROs), contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), and suppliers, stating that the company is significantly undervalued. Tango Therapeutics (Nasdaq: TNGX) shares surged 53% from $20.22 to $30.93 on June 8, after the company developing precision oncology therapies based on synthetic lethality reported preliminary positive data from its ongoing Phase I/II trial (NCT06922591) evaluating its next-generation MTA-cooperative PRMT5 inhibitor candidate vopimetostat (TNG456) in combination with Revolution Medicines' (Nasdaq: RVMD) RAS(ON) inhibitors daraxonrasib (RMC-6236) and zoldonrasib (RMC-9805) in MTAP-deleted, RAS-mutated metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients. Tango reported an objective response rate of 92% in PDAC patients in the vopimetostat plus daraxonrasib arm of the trial, while second- and third-line PDAC patients receiving the combination had a six-month progression-free survival rate of 90%, with median progression-free survival not yet reached, suggesting durability of clinical benefit. Tango stated it plans to finalize the Phase III randomized controlled trial design for the combination in first-line pancreatic cancer and report vopimetostat monotherapy data in lung cancer in the second half of 2026.
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