A California biotech that began as an anti-aging company, then licensed an Amgen heart failure drug for $1 million upfront and repurposed it as a weight loss therapy, has lined up a $198 million IPO.
BioAge Labs will begin trading as $BIOA on Thursday after pricing its Nasdaq debut at $18 per share, the midpoint of the $17-to-$19 range it proposed last week. Earlier Wednesday, the company upsized its IPO plans from 7.5 million shares to 10.5 million shares. The final pricing was upsized again to 11 million shares.
The nine-year-old startup confidentially filed for its IPO in late May — just a few months after a $170 million Series D round. The market for new companies has been heating up following a long-awaited Federal Reserve interest rate cut, with upsized IPOs from Bicara, Zenas and MBX earlier this month. And Upstream Bio and CAMP4 Therapeutics have IPOs pending as well.
BioAge wasn’t in desperate need of money — with cash and equivalents of $159 million at the end of June — but being a public company as it advances into critical Phase 2 trials could give it easier access to capital.
From heart failure to obesity
BioAge’s experimental medicine, an oral apelin receptor agonist named azelaprag from Amgen, is one of many next-generation obesity medications being developed by biotechs looking to follow the success of market leaders Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
It’s pairing azelaprag with those first-generation blockbuster medications, and it recently entered Phase 2 in combination with Lilly’s tirzepatide, with plans for another Phase 2 that will pair azelaprag with Novo’s semaglutide.
The startup also has an oral NLRP3 inhibitor in preclinical testing for metabolic disease and neuroinflammation. Sanofi invested in a Phase 2 NLRP3 biotech this week, and other drugmakers are exploring the target, including Novo and NodThera.
The 60-employee company’s largest shareholder is its co-founder and CEO Kristen Fortney, who owned 9.82% prior to the IPO, according to an S-1 filing. Slightly behind her is a16z Bio + Health at 9.36%.
Khosla Ventures, Sofinnova Investments, Longitude Venture Partners, RA Capital, Cormorant, Kaiser Permanente and Horsley Bridge are BioAge’s other main shareholders.