Alumis cuts IPO size, but nets $250M for immune drug work
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Immune drug developer Alumis has raised $210 million in one of the biotechnology sector’s 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, it’s 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.
Alumis’s lead program is what’s known as a TYK2 inhibitor, a type of oral drug that’s shown promise treating multiple immunological conditions. One TYK2 drug, Bristol Myers Squibb’s 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 hasn’t 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 company’s 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 year’s class trading below their offering price.
