Lycia Therapeutics is banking on a $227.8 million IPO as the biotech seeks to finance its pipeline of protein degraders for autoimmune, inflammatory and allergic diseases.
The South San Francisco-based biotech already disclosed earlier this month that it is hoping to go public. In a Tuesday filing, Lycia explained that it is aiming to sell 14.7 million shares priced between $16 and $18 apiece.
Assuming the final price falls in the middle of this range, the biotech expects to rake in $227.8 million in net proceeds—rising to $262.7 million if underwriters take up their option to buy an additional 2.2 million shares at the same price.
Lycia expects it will need around $80 million to take its lead asset LCA-0061 through a phase 2 study. LCA-0061 is a catalytic lysosomal targeting chimera (cataLYTAC) degrader designed to deplete immunoglobulin E (IgE) in order to treat food allergy and other allergic diseases.
A further $70 million will be set aside to take a “fast follower” cataLYTAC degrader called LCA-0062 into its own phase 2 study for food allergy. The hope is that LCA-0062 will offer “additional flexibility in dosing and duration of response” to its predecessor, LCA-0061.
In its filing, Lycia noted that IgE blockers like Novartis and Genentech’s Xolair have benefited patients with food allergy, but suggested these therapies “remain constrained by weight-based and often cumbersome dosing schedules as well as limitations in patients with high circulating IgE levels.”
Xolair and its ilk only inhibit IgE, rather than removing it entirely, Lycia pointed out in the filing. In contrast, LCA-0061 is “designed with an aim to eliminate total and free IgE by targeting extracellular IgE for lysosomal degradation.”
Preliminary data from an ongoing phase 1 trial of LCA-0061 has backed up this theory, according to Lycia, demonstrating “rapid, deep and sustained reduction in total and free IgE, with no safety signals or dose-limiting toxicities observed.”
Beyond food allergy, Lycia said it needs $90 million for a mid-stage study of LCA-0321, a LYTAC degrader for Graves’ disease. The therapy is designed to selectively degrade TRAbs, the pathogenic drivers of Graves’ disease.
Lycia’s workforce of 31 full-time employees is headed up by CEO Aetna Wun Trombley, Ph.D., a former chief operating officer of liver disease-focused NGM Biopharmaceuticals.
Having launched with $50 million in 2020 before raising a $70 million series B in 2021, a $106.6 million series C in 2024 and a $75 million fundraise in June, the company entered the second half of this year with $148.1 million still in the bank.