SPACs might never fully go away if the ambitions of three new healthcare-focused shops have any sway.
As initial public offerings are far and few between, and even reverse mergers have fallen by the wayside, blank-check companies might fill a gap in the public markets, or so their sponsors are betting.
Voyager Acquisition filed for a $261 million IPO on Tuesday, SIM Acquisition’s $200 million plans appeared on Monday and Launch One Acquisition’s paperwork for a $200 million debuted last week. All three wrote in their S-1 documents that they hope to carry a company in the healthcare industry onto the public markets. Launch One wrote that it’s particularly interested in “life sciences, globally.”
The last major biotech or life sciences SPAC was Cormorant Asset Management founder Bihua Chen’s Helix Acquisition Corp. II, $HLXB. This $184 million IPO in February comes after Chen’s first SPAC found success combining with MoonLake Immunotherapeutics. Meanwhile, AbbVie is still working to close its $8.7 billion purchase of neuroscience drugmaker Cerevel Therapeutics, which could make it one of the best-ever exits for a SPAC’d biotech.
After SPAC’s rosy period during the early days of the pandemic, they largely fell into a graveyard. Most were knocked down into the red zone after combining, some backed out of their merger plans and others ultimately decided to shutter before even helping a biotech become public.
Launch One’s director and planned chair, Ryan Gilbert, has been involved with multiple biotech SPAC combinations, including ones that took CERo Therapeutics, eFFECTOR Therapeutics and Psyence Biomedical public.
Voyager is led by multi-time SPAC operator Adeel Rouf. Its chair is Warren Hosseinion, who’s also chair of Cardio Diagnostics president of Nutex Health and co-founder of Apollo Medical Holdings.
Meanwhile, SIM’s CEO is Erich Spangenberg, who was recently founder and CEO of IP financial technology company IPwe, which is in the process of Chapter 7 bankruptcy. He’s also a former partner of the Coalition For Affordable Drugs.