The week finished with flurry of biotech IPOs, seven of them, a record number in a single day, according to BioWorld stats. Last year was a record year for IPOs as 106 new offerings were completed and raised $22.5 billion, more than double the previous record of $10.7 billion set in 2018. The seven companies that priced Feb. 5 are anticipating total gross proceeds of about $1.06 billion.

The appetite for biopharma IPOs this year has been voracious with no signs of a slowdown anytime soon. Year-to-date, a total of $14.63 billion was raised from 66 new global issues, a total that is already well ahead of the $10.7 billion in 2018, from 80 transactions, that represented the previous record for IPOs. In terms of volume, BioWorld has recorded that the highest number of IPOs in a single year was 84 in 2014, followed by 83 in 2000.

LONDON – Facing down the pandemic, U.K. biopharma had a record summer, raising just over £1 billion (US$1.3 billion) from June to August. That was up from £585 million in the second quarter of 2020, and brings the amount raised in the first nine months to £1.9 billion, putting 2020 on target to beat the 2018 record, when the annual total was £2.2 billion.

The appetite for biopharma IPOs this year has been voracious with no signs of a slowdown anytime soon. Year-to-date, a total of $14.63 billion was raised from 66 new global issues, a total that is already well ahead of the $10.7 billion in 2018, from 80 transactions, that represented the previous record for IPOs. In terms of volume, BioWorld has recorded that the highest number of IPOs in a single year was 84 in 2014, followed by 83 in 2000.

DUBLIN – In what continues to be a year like no other, European biotechnology firms engaged in drug development raised $4.783 billion in equity financing during the third quarter. It is an unprecedented level of funding for the sector.

Two well-received precision oncology IPOs closed out the week, joined by a successful ophthalmic specialty IPO and an immunotherapy debut that fell flat. P53 mutation hunter PMV Pharmaceuticals Inc. charged out the gate, raising $211.8 million, while Prelude Therapeutics Inc. took in $158.2 million.

Lixte Biotechnology Holdings Inc., a small OTC-listed company developing inhibitors of protein phosphatases to be used alone and in combination with cytotoxic agents and/or x-ray and immune checkpoint blockers for treating cancer, has filed to raise $10.7 million in a public offering of shares on Nasdaq.

Fresh off raising $640 million in private financing earlier this summer, Germany's Curevac BV burst onto the public market Friday with a $213.3 million Nasdaq IPO. Priced at a top-of-range $16 per share (NADAQ:CVAC), the company's stock rose more than 249% to close at $55.90 Aug. 14, buoyed by enthusiasm for its mRNA vaccine program against SARS-CoV-2. Majority shareholder and longtime Curevac backer Dievini Hopp Biotech Holding GmbH & Co. KG invested €100 million (US$118.3 million) in the company through a concurrent private placement.

Amid a world that has been brought to its knees by the COVID-19 pandemic, the biopharma industry has learned how to quickly adapt under these extreme circumstances. Not only has it rapidly brought to bear huge research efforts to uncover potential therapeutics and vaccines to counter the circulating coronavirus, but also it has learned how to conduct its business activities in a completely different way. For example, the pandemic hasn't stopped biopharmas from going public, with 15 companies graduating to the public arena in June alone. These financings have contributed to the $62 billion that has been generated in combined global public and private company financings in the first half of the year.