Amolyt Pharma SAS

GPCR drug developer Septerna plans to raise about $157 million in net proceeds from its proposed initial public offering , according to a new securities filing Monday morning. The Nasdaq debut would push out Septerna’s runway into 2027 and give it an overall capital heap of about $294 million. The Bay Area startup is marketing 10.93 million shares $SEPN in the range of $15 to $17 apiece, according to the SEC filing. The biotech, which works on oral drugs targeting G protein-coupled receptors, initially unveiled its Times Square ambitions on Oct. 2. Septerna is likely to go public right before the US presidential election, and no other major biotech startups are in the IPO on-deck circle. The market has been “quiet” since the steady stream of floats last month and earlier in October from companies like Upstream Bio, CAMP4 Therapeutics and MBX Biosciences. Like MBX, Septerna is working in the rare endocrinology field of hypoparathyroidism. The condition has also seen a bubbling of activity lately with the approval of Ascendis’ Yorvipath this summer and AstraZeneca’s acquisition of Amolyt Pharma. Septerna believes it’s the first to take an oral hypoparathyroidism treatment candidate into human studies. Septerna entered Phase 1 in Australia last month. The healthy volunteer study will include up to 180 adults to test once-daily and twice-daily dosing of its lead asset SEP-786. The biotech anticipates data in mid-2025 and then plans to move into Phase 1 in the US and “select foreign jurisdictions,” including places in Europe and Canada. The biotech has another oral small molecule for the inflammatory skin disease known as chronic spontaneous urticaria, or CSU. The company has started IND-enabling studies for the experimental medicine. It also wants to get into the popular fields of obesity and type 2 diabetes, but those programs are likely far away. The startup launched with $100 million in 2022 based on work in the lab of Nobel laureate and GPCR pioneer Robert Lefkowitz. Septerna then assembled a $150 million Series B in mid-2023. Third Rock Ventures, Samsara BioCapital, RA Capital, Deep Track, Invus, BVF and Goldman Sachs’ West Street Life Sciences all own 5% or more of the 68-employee startup.

Kurma Partners has closed the first part of its latest biotech-focused fund, following a pair of M&A exits for drug developers backed by its third fund. The Paris-based investment firm closed on the first €140 million ($154 million) of its Biofund IV in July, managing director Rémi Droller told Endpoints News . Kurma aims to complete the fund at €250 million (about $276 million) sometime next year, it said Thursday morning. The first close nearly equals the total Kurma raised for the predecessor, Biofund III, which in 2020 had a final close of €160 million . In the past year, two companies backed by the third fund were acquired. Eli Lilly bought ADC startup Emergence Therapeutics and AstraZeneca bought late-stage hypoparathyroidism biotech Amolyt Pharma . Droller said Lilly snagged Emergence for $600 million, which he described as the “largest preclinical exit ever achieved in Europe.” Lilly had declined to disclose the purchase price at the time of the August 2023 buyout. Another company from the third fund, gene therapy maker Corlieve Therapeutics, was bought by uniQure in 2021. Kurma’s new capital adds to money raised by European biotech and life sciences investors this year, including Spanish group Invivo , Milan-based XGEN Venture , Earlybird Health in Germany, Dublin-headquartered Seroba , Venga Ventures in Austria and Barcelona-based Asabys Partners . “The investment activity in Europe is still very dynamic and positive, but also very selective,” Droller said. Part of the company’s portfolio typically involves creating companies and nurturing them, he said. Once its companies are mature enough to consider the public markets, though, Kurma advises its biotech startups to look at the Nasdaq. “We really advise and focus our companies on the US IPO only. The European market is not a market for biotech,” Droller said. “There is not a sufficient number of specialized investors, and even the specialized investors in Europe, they are more looking at investing in Nasdaq-listed companies. There’s more liquidity, more analyst coverage.” The fourth fund has already gone toward three companies and will back about 20 total in Europe, Droller said. About half of the fund will go toward already established biotechs and about half toward the creation of new companies, Droller said. “When we talk Europe, it’s also about repeat entrepreneurs,” said Kurma partner Amanda Gett-Chaperot, who joined the firm last year after eight years at Seventure Partners. “It’s really working with new entrepreneurs” and then supporting them again when they’re ready to start the next company. Kurma’s biotech team mainly invests in biologics and has supported a variety of therapeutic areas over the years. That includes Alzheimer’s at Asceneuron , severe swelling at Pharvaris , cancers at Flamingo Therapeutics and Tacalyx , and obesity at Zealand Pharma , among other disease areas. The 15-year-old firm also has diagnostics funds and a growth opportunities fund, which recently contributed to radioisotope producer PanTera . In 2021, Kurma co-founded Argobio Studio, an incubator that helps academic institutes in Europe move scientific discoveries toward a drug candidate that can serve as the foundation for a startup. Droller said there are about 15 projects in the studio, and each project gets about €4 to €5 million across two to four years. Kurma is part of the Eurazeo group. The large European investment firm is one of Kurma’s main investors. Other backers of Biofund IV include Bpifrance and Australia-based global biotech CSL.

Septerna is joining biotech’s IPO on-deck circle, preparing for a public offering with two other startups that have similar ambitions. It announced its plans in a securities filing Wednesday evening and would trade as $SEPN on the Nasdaq. Two other companies, Upstream Bio and CAMP4 Therapeutics , have also recently filed to list. Septerna is working on a class of drugs that target G protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs, and has touted its ability to go after previously untapped or difficult-to-drug receptors in that category. The Bay Area biotech’s oral small molecule SEP-786 entered Phase 1 last month and will have data in mid-2025, according to the Wednesday night filing. After a dismal three years for new biotech listings, the industry has started to pick up steam with three IPOs in one day last month and another Nasdaq debut last week from obesity drugmaker BioAge Labs. Like MBX Biosciences, one of last month’s IPOs, Septerna’s lead drug candidate is also going after hypoparathyroidism, a disease in which the body doesn’t make enough parathyroid hormone, harming people’s ability to regulate levels of calcium and phosphorus. It’s been an active area for drug developers. AstraZeneca bought Amolyt Pharma earlier this year to gain access to its late-stage hypoparathyroidism drug candidate and Ascendis Pharma got an FDA green light for its medicine treating the disease in August. Takeda stopped making its hypoparathyroidism drug Natpara this year after manufacturing issues. “We think that the game-changer for this whole space will be an oral small molecule instead, and we’ve developed compounds that we believe should work as well as those injectable peptides,” CEO Jeffrey Finer told Endpoints News when it raised a $150 million Series B in July 2023. Septerna launched with $100 million in 2022 based on work in the labs of Nobel laureate and GPCR pioneer Robert Lefkowitz. G protein-coupled receptors are popular targets, leading to more than 700 drugs over the decades, but Septerna thinks the industry has only scratched the surface. It’s creating allosteric modulators, which Lefkowitz previously analogized to “drill[ing] all over the country rather than just in that one tiny little orthosteric place.” And it sold a discovery-stage GPCR program to Vertex last year for $47.5 million upfront. Septerna spent $28 million on R&D in the first six months of the year, a $12 million increase over the same period of 2023. It had $143 million in working capital at the end of June. Its biggest stockholders, owning more than 5%, are Third Rock Ventures, Samsara BioCapital, RA Capital, Deep Track, Invus, BVF and Goldman Sachs’ West Street Life Sciences.