ANGPTL7

Obesity drug developer Metsera and kidney disease biotech Maze Therapeutics priced their Nasdaq IPOs on Thursday evening. Metsera $MTSR will raise $275 million and Maze $MAZE will raise $140 million in their initial public offerings, according to announcements by the companies Thursday evening. When they begin trading in New York on Friday, the two biotech companies could set the tone for what appears to be a mini-revival of IPOs by drug developers. Behind them are four other startups — Sionna , Odyssey , Aardvark and Aurion — that have also filed to go public. Metsera and Maze both check many of the boxes sought by public market investors: Both have drug candidates already being tested in humans, experienced management teams steering their R&D and business development engines, marquee crossover investor names, near-term clinical readouts, and came into their IPOs with plenty of spare cash. ARCH Venture Partners and Alphabet’s GV are large shareholders in both companies. Metsera’s IPO is being propelled by investors’ interest in obesity, a field that some industry insiders anticipate will become the largest pharmaceutical market in history. The New York-based drug developer, founded by veterans of The Medicines Company, has a Phase 2b-stage GLP-1 receptor agonist called MET-097i , a Phase 1 amylin analog and multiple other drug candidates. Metsera will begin trading at $18 per share, above the $15 to $17 range it marketed to investors earlier this week. It sold 15.27 million shares, against an original plan of 17.18 million. Maze will launch at $16 per share, the midpoint of the range it proposed at the beginning of this week. It floated 8.75 million shares, against the initial plan of 7.8 million shares. Its lead asset is an oral small molecule being investigated in Phase 2 for APOL1 kidney disease. It also has another small molecule in Phase 1 for chronic kidney disease. Maze’s journey has been somewhat unusual. It sold its Pompe disease treatment candidate to Shionogi last year after the FTC blocked a deal with Sanofi . The IPO filing contains details of the Shionogi deal, showing that in addition to a $150 million upfront payment, Shionogi could pay as much as $275 million for clinical and regulatory milestones and up to $330 million if specific sales marks are hit. The Japanese pharma could also pay low double-digit to 20% royalties on net sales. Maze has created several joint ventures, as well. One, ophthalmology-focused Broadwing Bio out-licensed an ANGPTL7 program to an undisclosed biotech in August, according to the financial filing. Contour Therapeutics, a cardiovascular-focused JV with BridgeBio, dissolved in October 2022. Maze also outlicensed a discovery program targeting ATXN2 to Neurocrine last year for $2.5 million upfront and up to $200 million in biobucks, according to the filing.