Biotech IPO Wave Continues With ADARx Pricing and City Filing

The biotech IPO window is wide open, and Thursday's pricing put a number on it. ADARx Pharmaceuticals priced its offering at $17 a share, the top of its $15-to-$17 range, raising $446.3 million. AbbVie also bought about $89 million in a private stock sale. The shares began trading on Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker ADRX.

ADARx is the first maker of RNA-interference drugs to price a traditional U.S. IPO in more than a decade, and the first RNA-focused biotech to go public in almost two years, BioPharma Dive reported. Its lead drug, onvuzosiran, is in late-stage testing for hereditary angioedema; early data are expected by the end of 2027.

The same day, City Therapeutics filed an S-1 for a Nasdaq listing under CTY, according to a TradingView summary of the filing. The summary said Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Stifel and Oppenheimer are leading the offering, and proceeds will fund trials for CITY-FXI, CITY-RBP4 and CITY-TFR2. City's lead program CITY-FXI targets Factor XI to prevent thrombosis, with a Phase 2 study in total knee arthroplasty planned.

The current cluster began building earlier in 2026. AllSci reported that Parabilis Medicines and Kailera Therapeutics completed record-setting listings earlier this year. On August 11, Apnimed joined the NASDAQ Composite Index after its own IPO and filed a $250.8 million shelf registration, according to Simply Wall St.

TechCrunch reported on September 3 that Oura had filed to go public on Thursday. The filing showed revenue of $1.2 billion for the nine months ended June 30, up from $697 million a year earlier, and about 5 million paid members.

On September 21, Iambic Therapeutics filed its S-1 to list on Nasdaq, AllSci reported. Iambic plans to use proceeds to advance IAM1363, an oral brain-penetrant HER2 inhibitor; AllSci said a registrational trial could start as early as 2027. Iambic has partnerships with AbbVie and Takeda, among others.

Tekedia reported that on the previous Friday, drug developers Retension Pharmaceuticals and TRex Bio submitted IPO paperwork, and ADARx began its roadshow on Monday. Renaissance Capital senior strategist Matt Kennedy told Tekedia that the five top-performing IPOs this year with deals of at least $50 million are all biotechs, driven by drug advancement and M&A.

Several forces explain the biotech resilience. Tekedia reported that analysts say biotech has been less exposed to pressures from the Iran war, higher bond yields, interest-rate increases and worries that AI could disrupt established industries. Large drugmakers face pressure to replenish pipelines as existing drugs mature, which creates demand for smaller biotechs with promising therapies and technology platforms.

BioPharma Dive said sector IPO volume is running at its quickest since 2021, with 22 drug companies pricing IPOs in 2026. Renaissance Capital noted in a quarterly review that higher bond yields, resumed rate hikes and concerns about AI spending could slow new offerings in the coming months. For now, four biotechs have filed plans to go public over the past week, including City Therapeutics, Iambic and TRex Bio, according to BioPharma Dive.