Cancer biotech Parabilis books record IPO, raising $670m
Robb Miller
Parabilis Medicines is expecting to raise around $670 million in its public offering, with another $75 million in a concurrent private placement backed by Regeneron, setting a new record for a biotech IPO on the Nasdaq.
The specialist in cancer medicines is due to start trading on the exchange today, under the PBLS ticker, with a starting price of $20, well ahead of its predicted $17 to $19 range. It also raised the number of shares on offer from 25 million to 33.3 million, in another signal of the strong investor appetite for biotech stocks with advanced clinical-stage assets.
The final tally beats the record set by the $625 million raised by obesity drug developer Kailera Therapeutics, which closed in April, and comes just a few months after Parabilis closed a $305 million Series F financing.
Parabilis' lead asset is zolucatetide (FOG-001), a beta-catenin inhibitor, which is being prepared for phase 3 testing in people living with desmoid tumours in the first half of 2027. The drug targets the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway that has been implicated in a broad swathe of tumour types, including colorectal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma.
As a treatment for desmoid tumours – rare, non-cancerous growths that develop in the body's connective tissues – zolucatetide has shown promising activity in phase 1/2 testing, including tumour reductions in 100% of patients with a 74% objective response rate (ORR) in patients who have had at least two post-baseline scans, assessed using the RECIST 1.1 measure.
The responses were seen in patients who had failed treatment with gamma-secretase inhibitors (GSIs), such as Merck KGaA/SpringWorks Therapeutics' first-to-market Ogsiveo (nirogacestat), as well as GSI-naïve patients.
Zolucatetide has also shown preliminary efficacy in follow-up indication familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), a rare inherited disorder that leads to colorectal cancer if left untreated, with one patient in an ongoing phase 1/2 trial showing significant improvement in polyps in the duodenum at 60 weeks.
Parabilis, which was previously known as Fog Pharma, has said zolucatetide represents an "expansive opportunity for medical and commercial impact." Meanwhile, its Helicon drug discovery platform, which generates stabilised alpha-helical peptides that can target previously "undruggable" targets, includes programmes in prostate cancer – with degrader molecules targeting ERG and active-state androgen receptors – as well as a follow-up beta-catenin degrader.
It has earmarked $150 million of the IPO proceeds for zolucatetide's desmoid tumour trials, $120 million to pursue additional indications for the drug, and $190 million to advance other pipeline programmes into clinical testing.
Photo by Robb Miller on Unsplash
