Nemolizumab

Attovia Therapeutics has accreted a hefty $289 million from its IPO to power its anti-itch drugs through clinical development, marking another upsized listing in what has become a banner year for biotech Nasdaq debuts. After initially hoping to bring in around $182.4 million by selling 12.5 million shares priced between $15 and $17 apiece, Attovia later updated its plans to aim for $265.1 million in net proceeds. Wednesday, the biotech revealed it ultimately sold 17 million shares priced at $17. The resulting $289 million in gross proceeds could be boosted by a further $43.3 million should underwriters fully take up their option to buy an additional 2.5 million shares at the same price. The company's stock will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ATTO.” The Silicon Valley-based company has been on a biotech speedrun, securing three fundraises and now an IPO to go along with phase 1 data for its lead asset after just three years of existence. Attovia plans to use the IPO haul to kick off two large phase 2 studies next year for ATTO-1310, an engineered biologic that blocks the itch-inducing interleukin-31 (IL-31). These trials will focus on chronic pruritus of unknown origin and a subset of atopic dermatitis patients who experience high levels of itchiness, Attovia CEO Tao Fu told Fierce in an interview. But the ultimate potential for a chronic itch drug is substantial, he said. “Chronic itch is a huge disease burden impacting ... over 15 million people in the U.S.,” Fu said. The severity of chronic itch—which can lead to skin damage, sleep loss, depression and even suicidal thoughts—is often underappreciated because itch is viewed as a symptom rather than a disease worth treating in its own right, the CEO pointed out. “This has an immense impact on their quality of life, and right now there's really no effective therapy,” Fu said. “We actually have a forecast of over $11 billion peak sales for ATTO-1310 in just the core indications.” Attovia’s platform, licensed from Alamar Biosciences, allows for the modular construction of molecules that can hit numerous targets, according to Fu. The company calls these molecules “attobodies.” The CEO described these attobodies as “like Lego pieces” with binding arms built to hit multiple pieces of the same target. While ATTO-1310 hits just one target, Attovia’s pipeline also boasts a bispecific for IL-31 and IL-13, as well as a trispecific for TL1A, IL-23 and integrin α4β7. While these assets, respectively called ATTO-2306 and ATTO-1091, are still in preclinical development, Fu intends to push them into phase 1 testing early next year. ATTO-1310 faces one approved challenger in the form of Galderma’s Nemluvio, which is approved for atopic dermatitis and is in development for chronic pruritus. But otherwise the market is vastly underserved, and Attovia has argued its approach to targeting IL-31 is superior to first-in-class Nemluvio’s. While Galderma’s drug binds to IL-31’s receptor, ATTO-1310 is designed to cling to IL-31 itself. “We actually believe by targeting the ligand, we can achieve stronger or deeper and faster itch relief,” Fu said, noting that ATTO-1310 may also allow for less frequent dosing. The bispecific ATTO-2306, on the other hand, is meant to directly face off against Sanofi and Regeneron’s blockbuster inflammation med Dupixent. “Dupi is going to be biosimilar in 2031,” Fu said. “You have to set the bar very high for a biologic to challenge Dupi in that context. You basically have to outperform on both efficacy and dosing—that's how we are designing the molecule.” The trispecific ATTO-1091 is in development for inflammatory bowel disease, another heavily crowded indication. In general, Fu said he could see Attovia ultimately commercializing its assets through partnerships with Big Pharma or on its own depending on the specific indication. Attovia’s quick pace through the biotech lifecycle has been enabled by its platform, Fu told Fierce, which uses a “secret sauce” of an “evolution-driven approach” to rapidly screen prospective attobodies for desired characteristics. “You actually don't need to do a lot of optimization,” Fu said. “These attobodies come out of the ‘assembly line’ [and] pretty much have the properties we're looking for.” While the California biotech’s near-term goal is to succeed in ATTO-1310’s dual phase 2 studies and then march on to phase 3, the long-term vision is to roll more and more medicines off the attobody assembly line. While inflammation and immunology is the focus right now, Fu sees no reason for Attovia to limit itself—aside from human capital constraints. “We really have no restrictions,” the CEO said. “We have a lot of ideas, but I’ll also say we have only 45 people right now. We need to be focused.”

Braveheart Bio, Attovia Therapeutics and Vogenx have set target ranges for their IPOs, positioning the trio to collectively net more than $500 million from public investors. Earlier this month, Braveheart, Attovia and Vogenx published IPO filings within one day of each other. Staying in lockstep, each biotech has updated its paperwork to include details of how many shares it plans to offer and at what price. Braveheart is set for the biggest of the three offerings. Aiming to sell 18.7 million shares for $15 to $17 each, the cardiomyopathy drug developer will bring in about $274.5 million in net proceeds if it hits the midpoint of its price range, securing its financial future into 2029. The company has allocated $90 million to phase 3 development of its oral cardiac myosin inhibitor BHB-1893 in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. A further $100 million is earmarked for phase 3 development of the drug candidate in the non-obstructive form of the heart disease. The trials could establish BHB-1893 as a rival to Bristol Myers Squibb’s Camzyos and Cytokinetics’ Myqorzo. Attovia is planning the next largest offering. Like Braveheart, the biotech has set a price range of $15 to $17 for its IPO and expects to pocket enough cash to fund operations into 2029. But with Attovia aiming to sell fewer shares than its counterpart—12.5 million—the company is predicting about $182.4 million in net proceeds if it hits the midpoint of the range. Having $132.6 million to hand at the end of March, Attovia expects to exit the IPO with enough cash to spend $110 million to $130 million to take ATTO-1310 through phase 2 development in two indications. The IL-31 inhibitor could compete with Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent and Galderma’s Nemluvio. Attovia plans to spend $60 million to $80 million on a phase 2 trial of another asset, ATTO-2306, in eczema. Vogenx is on course to complete the smallest of the three IPOs. The biotech’s proposed offering of 6.25 million shares for $11 to $13 apiece would net about $67.8 million at the midpoint of the range. Vogenx, which was down to its last $251,000 at the end of March, will use the money to develop the SGLT1 inhibitor mizagliflozin in two indications. The biotech expects the IPO cash to last through 2028.