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| Aimmune CEO Stephen Dilly |
Working off of an $80 million crossover round with newly won boasting rights to the FDA's breakthrough therapy designation in hand, Brisbane, CA-based Aimmune Therapeutics is wasting no time in diving into the heated IPO waters for biotech. The biotech filed plans to raise $115 million on Nasdaq, the latest in a scrum of developers anxious to tap into the long-running boom market.
Aimmune's fate will be decided by investors' appetite for its experimental peanut allergy drug. In a small Phase II study the peanut protein tech that Aimmune uses was effective in training immune systems to ignore peanuts, avoiding a severe allergic response. The biotech has been setting the stage for a Phase III pivotal study with an eye to delivering a new treatment for some two million people with peanut allergies in the U.S. and Europe.
Going into 2015, a number of analysts expected that the red-hot market for biotech IPOs would begin to cool down. But even as some offerings are running into resistance, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that, if anything, the market is increasingly blistering hot. And that has excited batches of IPOs even as the debate continues over just how long this bull market can run.
The biotech trend also wasn't lost on BioCardia, which is prepping a Phase III study for a cell-based treatment for heart failure--a tough field for any developer. BioCardia just amended its IPO plans, lifting its target to $62 million. Stockholm-based Oasmia Pharmaceutical just filed an F-1 to raise $23 million on Nasdaq while the U.S./Israeli Chiasma is now shooting for $92 million and Canada's ProNAi is coming to America for $123 million to back its pipeline of DNAi-based therapies.
Originally named Allergen Research, Aimmune plans to distinguish itself from the crowd with a pipeline of characterized oral desensitization immunotherapies, or CODITs.
Longitude Venture Partners owns 23% of the company, making it the big investor. Foresite Capital owns 12% with Fidelity groups coming in at 8% and Aisling at 7%, according to the S-1.
- here's the S-1