Gene editing biotech Metagenomi pulls off nearly $94M IPO

2024-02-08

IPO上市批准基因疗法并购

Dive Brief:

Metagenomi, a gene editing startup spun out of research at the University of California, Berkeley, brought in about $93.8 million in the biotechnology sector’s sixth initial public offering of the year.

The company on Thursday sold 6.25 million shares at $15 apiece, matching the estimates it set earlier this week. The offering will fund the development of genetic medicines for a variety of conditions, including hemophilia and transthyretin amyloidosis.

The IPO makes Metagenomi one of the rare biotech companies to go public recently without a drug already in clinical trials. But its offering is also the smallest by total proceeds so far in 2024. The largest were from CG Oncology and Kyverna Therapeutics, both of which have medicines in mid- or late-stage testing.

Dive Insight:

CRISPR gene editing captured headlines in recent months with the landmark approval of Casgevy, the first medicine made from the Nobel Prize-winning technology. But that milestone was only part of a larger story, of which an emerging generation of drugmakers hope to play a part.

Many of these newer companies were built to address CRISPR’s limitations. Some are advancing more precise forms of gene editing or working on better ways to deliver the complex medicines, for instance.

Metagenomi is one. The company uses technology that sifts through microbial DNA to find new enzymes that can edit genes. Prior to going public, the startup raised about $352 million from a list of investors including Bayer HealthCare and Novo Holdings. It also formed partnerships with Moderna and Ionis Pharmaceuticals.

That backing has helped it construct a pipeline of more than a dozen publicly disclosed programs. Most are designed to edit genes “in vivo,” or inside the body, though the company is also working on ex vivo cell therapies through an alliance with Affini-T Therapeutics.

The company’s most advanced drug prospects are for the rare diseases hemophilia A, primary hyperoxaluria type 1 and transthyretin amyloidosis. All are in preclinical testing, though, and the company didn’t say in its IPO filing when human trials might begin.

Being at such an early stage of development makes Metagenomi an outlier of sorts. Whereas a majority of the companies that went public a few years ago were in early or preclinical testing, most of the biotechs pricing IPOs of late have drugs that are further along, according to BioPharma Dive data.

Fractyl Health, the only other preclinical biotech to earn a listing this year, also has a marketed medical device. Only two other preclinical companies — Apogee Therapeutics and Prime Medicine — have priced IPOs of more than $20 million since October 2022.

Yet the pace and size of new biotech stock offerings appear to be picking up. By this time last year, four companies had raised a combined $375 million in their offerings. In 2024, six have now pocketed a total of $1.2 billion.

Metagenomi will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday under the symbol “MGX.”

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