Deucravacitinib

Immune drug developer Alumis has raised $210 million in one of the biotechnology sectors largest initial public offerings this year.Still, the IPO announced Thursday comes in below projections Alumis set earlier this week. The company had expected to sell about 17.7 million shares at $16 to $18 apiece, guaranteeing it at least $282.5 million. Instead, Alumis sold about 13.1 million shares at the low end of that range, and boosted its haul with a $40 million private stock sale to AyurMaya Capital Management, one of its top equity holders.Shares will begin trading Friday on the Nasdaq stock exchange.Even though the offering is smaller than Alumis intended, its still the third-largest for a biotech this year, according to BioPharma Dive data. It also ranks among the most lucrative offerings since the final months of 2021, when the demand for sector IPOs cooled following a multi-year bull run.The company is capitalizing on interest in developers of drugs for autoimmune diseases, which have seen an uptick in venture funding, acquisitions and new stock offerings. Since the start of 2023, IPOs from Acelyrin, Kyverna Therapeutics, AbiVax,Apogee Therapeutics and now Alumis have all surpassed $200 million in proceeds, a mark only matched by four other companies.Alumiss lead program is whats known as a TYK2 inhibitor, a type of oral drug thats shown promise treating multiple immunological conditions. One TYK2 drug, Bristol Myers Squibbs Sotyktu, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2022 as a treatment for plaque psoriasis.Alumis claims its drug, called ESK-001, could be more potent and selective than Sotyktu, though that hasnt yet been proven in testing. It also faces several other competitors. Takeda has a drug in late-stage testing that it acquired from Nimbus Therapeutics. Privately held biotechs Sudo Biosciences and Priovant Therapeutics, among others, are also working on next-generation TYK2 inhibitors.A Phase 3 trial of ESK-001 in plaque psoriasis is expected to start by the end of 2024. Alumis is also testing ESK-001 in Phase 2 trials in lupus and uveitis, and has a different type of TYK2 drug in early testing for neuroinflammatory conditions.Previously known as Esker Therapeutics, Alumis was founded in 2021 and incubated by San Francisco-based Foresite Labs. With a 33% stake, Foresite Capital, the investment firm that formed Foresite Labs, is the companys largest shareholder.The company is led by Martin Babler, a former Genentech executive who previously ran Principia Biopharma, which Sanofi acquired in 2020.After a fast start to 2024, the pace of new biotech stock issues has slowed. Only four biotechs priced offerings during the second quarter, compared to eight in the first three months of the year, according to BioPharma Dive data. Performance has lagged as well, with most of this years class trading below their offering price. '

Pictured: Nasdaq building in New York City/iStock, hapabapa Alumis on Friday announced that it would proceed with its initial public offering, though with a smaller raise than it had recently hoped. The San Francisco-based biotech will put more than 13,1 million shares of its common stock up for sale at $16 apiece. Concurrent with its initial public offering (IPO), Alumis will also sell 2.5 million additional shares in a private placement with AyurMaya Capital Management Fund. In total, the company expects to raise $260 million in gross proceeds, before taking away underwriting discounts and commissions. Alumis can make more money from a 30-day over-allotment option, during which underwriters can purchase up to nearly 1,97 million additional shares of the biotech’s common stock at the IPO price. The company will make its Nasdaq debut on Friday under the stock ticker symbol ALMS. The IPO is expected to close on July 1, 2024. Morgan Stanley, Leering Partners, Cantor and Guggenheim Securities are the joint book-running managers for the IPO. Alumis filed its IPO earlier this month but only revealed that it initially targeted a raise of $274 million on Monday, with a per-share price range of $16 to $18. The biotech will use the funds to advance its lead candidate ESK-001, a second-generation TYK2 inhibitor being developed for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. In addition to its IPO, Alumis will also have $259 million in Series C funding to support the development of ESK-001. Closed in March 2024, the Series C round was led by Foresite Capital, Samsara BioCapital and venBio Partners. Soon after, the company posted promising data from the Phase II STRIDE study showing that patients treated with ESK-001 were more likely to achieve a 75% improvement on the Psoriasis Area and Severity Score, a validated tool to measure psoriasis severity. At the time, CEO Martin Babler said that the biotech was preparing to push ESK-001 into Phase III development. With these data, Alumis is positioning ESK-001 as a rival to Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) and Takeda’s TAK-279. In its IPO filing earlier this month, Alumis said that these first-generation TYK2 blockers “have not been able to achieve complete TYK2 inhibition … limiting their otherwise therapeutic potential.” According to the company, ESK-001 has the potential to overcome these first-generation limitations “by achieving maximal target inhibition.” Alumis is also developing A-005, another TYK2 inhibitor, that can cross into the central nervous system and which is being assessed for neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative conditions. The biotech recently launched its Phase I study of A-005, testing its safety and tolerability in healthy volunteers. Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or email him at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.