Nascent clinical biotech Septerna added to the slight uptick in IPO fervor this fall with its $288 million Nasdaq listing on Friday.
Investors seemed enthused by the prospects of the GPCR biotech. They ate up five million additional shares than Septerna had originally planned to sell in the IPO, and the Bay Area startup priced its public debut at $18 per share $SEPN, or $1 above the high end of the $15 to $17 range it marketed to investors this week. It landed a valuation of about $743 million based on its number of outstanding shares.
The drug developer entered the clinic just last month with a Phase 1 healthy volunteer study of SEP-786 in Australia. It anticipates data in mid-2025 and will then move to additional studies in the US, Canada, Europe and other places, according to the company’s IPO filings.
Septerna seeks to be the first to create an oral medicine for patients with hypoparathyroidism, a condition that impacts about 100,000 people in the US and impairs the body’s ability to regulate calcium and phosphorus levels.
The rare condition has been an active area for researchers and drug developers in recent years. Takeda pulled its drug Natpara from the market, Ascendis Pharma snagged an FDA approval for Yorvipath this summer, and AstraZeneca bought a Phase 3 biotech for up to $1.05 billion this spring. MBX Biosciences, meanwhile, went public last month while in Phase 2 with its candidate.
The 68-employee biotech also plans to enter the clinic with another oral small molecule for an inflammatory skin disease known as chronic spontaneous urticaria. Beyond that, Septerna has ambitions to make GPCR medicines for type 2 diabetes and obesity, which has become a hot area for nearly every large pharma and a whole new crop of biotechs thanks to the success of GLP-1 drugs.
The biotech drew back the curtains in 2022 based on Nobel Prize-winning work out of GPCR pioneer Robert Lefkowitz. It secured $100 million for that launch round and then came back with a $150 million Series B a year later. Its biggest investors — all owning 5% or more — are Third Rock Ventures, Samsara BioCapital, RA Capital, Deep Track, Invus, BVF and Goldman Sachs’ West Street Life Sciences.
At the end of June, Septerna had $143 million in working capital, according to its IPO paperwork.