Although investor sentiment continues to remain low and unlikely to change for the remainder of the year, it seems that fact has fallen on deaf ears of those companies looking to graduate to the public ranks. Already in the first few days of September, five biopharma companies have added themselves to the IPO runway, bringing the number of pending U.S. offerings to 12, according to BioWorld.

HONG KONG – Sinomab Bioscience Ltd., a Hong Kong clinical-stage antibody firm, said its application for a Hong Kong IPO was accepted by the stock exchange, making it the 16th biopharma to submit an application under the new rules of the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX).

DUBLIN – To no one's great surprise, the underwriters of Genmab A/S's IPO on Nasdaq exercised their overallotment option, the company announced Friday, taking the total gross to $581.8 million. The Copenhagen-based antibody developer priced the offering of about 32.8 million American depositary shares at $17.75 Thursday. The stock (NASDAQ:GMAB) ended the week at $18.10.

Despite the ups and downs of the general markets and a U.S. government shutdown at the beginning of the year that contributed to no biopharma companies graduating to the public ranks in January, the enthusiasm for biopharma IPOs has remained steady since then. In fact, a flurry of IPO listings on U.S. stock exchanges last month helped bring the total of those offerings to 30 at the halfway point in the year. 

DUBLIN – European biotechnology firms engaged in drug discovery and development raised an aggregate $3.172 billion in equity investment during the first half of 2019, down 19% on the same period last year. Unless there is a substantial pickup in the third and fourth quarters, the sector's record-breaking 2018 total of $7.715 billion looks to be out of reach.