Beijing Luzhu Biotechnology Co. Ltd. raised a net HK$242 million (US$31 million) from an IPO in Hong Kong but shares in the developer of vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases, cancer and autoimmune diseases plummeted on the first day of trading. Luzhu’s shares (HK:2480) started trading on May 8 at HK$31.50 and fell about 30% throughout the day to close at HK$22. Founded in 2001, Luzhu has yet to turn a profit. It recorded net losses of ¥725.2 million (US$92 million) in 2022 and ¥539.4 million in 2021.
In what has been described as one of the slowest, closed-window public markets in recent years, Acelyrin Inc. priced an upsized IPO, raising $540 million, the fifth highest amount for a U.S. IPO by a traditional biopharma company to date. Despite industry IPOs raising only $628 million throughout the first four months of 2023 – the lowest amount in 10 years, Acelyrin’s IPO suggests that there is still a strong investor appetite ready and waiting for innovative technologies with solid data.
Patient Square Capital bankrolled a new portfolio company, Elevage Medical Technologies, with $300 million to provide capital and strategic expertise to promising medical device companies. Evan Melrose, founding managing director of Spindletop Capital and a practicing family medicine physician, will lead Elevage.
Med-tech companies are facing a new reality of high interest rates, inflation, bank failures, and geopolitical turmoil that are impacting financing and M&A opportunities. To secure finance and attract partnership deals they must keep their product simple, focus on proof of concept and ensure that it has quality, delegates at the LSX World Congress in London heard during a panel presentation.
Pattern Bioscience Inc. reeled in $28.7 million in a series C financing led by Illumina Ventures and Omnimed Capital. The money will be used to complete development of its rapid phenotypic test platform for infectious diseases, conduct clinical validation studies and submit the platform and Pattern’s initial test, for pneumonia, for U.S. FDA review.
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