In a pandemic boom callback, David Liu's preclinical gene editing startup debuts on Nasdaq with $175M IPO

2022-10-20

IPO

David Liu’s CRISPR 3.0 play will officially hit Nasdaq on Thursday.

Prime Medicine priced its IPO raise with $175 million in new cash, the company announced late Wednesday, expecting to offer a little more than 10 million shares that will debut at $17 apiece. The move comes amid a largely frozen IPO market lasting most of the year, but one that’s seen signs of thawing recently after another biotech, Third Harmonic Bio, closed its initial offering at more than $210 million last month.

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The company is developing a host of gene editing programs that it believes will ultimately prove safer and more effective than the initial CRISPR approaches already in the clinic. Liu, the Harvard biologist known for inventing “CRISPR 2.0” now in use by Verve and Beam, has designed Prime’s platform as able to replace any DNA base with any other.

Researchers are shooting for a wide range of initial indications, including sickle cell disease, Friedreich Friedreich’s ataxia, cystic fibrosis and other liver, blood, eye and ear diseases. But all the work remains preclinical thus far.

In an extensive interview with Endpoints earlier this year, Liu discussed how he expects Prime’s first program to be in human testing as soon as 2024, and noted the company still hasn’t decided on a delivery system for its programs.

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That two biotechs secured nine-figure IPOs within the last six weeks is notable in its own right, given how only a handful have accomplished the feat all year. Per the Endpoints News tally, Prime Medicine is only the seventh biotech IPO in 2022 to surpass the $100 million mark, joining CinCor, Amylyx, Arcellx, HilleVax, PepGen and Third Harmonic.

Prime’s public debut harkens back to the pandemic boom times of 2020 and early 2021, when preclinical biotechs were jumping to Nasdaq left and right. The biotech has yet to begin any IND-enabling studies, with research still in the early- to mid-discovery stages. According to its S-1, Prime expects to file its first IND “as early as 2024,” with the potential for more in 2025.

Had Prime launched a few years earlier, it’s easy to imagine the company pulling in much more cash than the $175 million it’s expecting from the IPO. And now under the SEC’s reporting requirements, every success — and failure — will be magnified and scrutinized in the public eye.

But with their own IPOs now in hand, will other companies follow Third Harmonic and Prime into the choppy IPO waters?

Thursday’s IPO comes after Prime launched with a $315 million Series A last year that included $200 million in new cash. New and existing cash is expected to be used primarily for preclinical proof-of-concept and IND-enabling studies, the S-1 says, with some earmarked for discovery research and manufacturing costs.

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Liu comes out as the biggest winner, owning a 25% equity stake in the company. ARCH Ventures, F-Prime and GV make up the other prominent players, owning 13.4%, 13.4% and 14.6% stakes, respectively. When it officially starts trading, Prime will do so under the ticker $PRME.

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