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Dive Brief:Evommune, a biotechnology company making a pair of drugs for immune conditions such as chronic skin hives and atopic dermatitis, priced a $150 million initial public offering on Wednesday.The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company sold nearly 9.4 million shares at $16 apiece, and will begin trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol EVMN.Evommune is the second biotech, along with MapLight Therapeutics,to recently rely on a little-used section of the Securities Act to price an offering during the federal government shutdown. Under that provision, a company with an existing IPO registration statement can go public by filing an amended version that removes a key piece of legal language. The offering prices automatically 20 days afterwards.Dive Insight:Founded five years ago, Evommune is developing would-be competitors to widely used inflammatory disease drugs like Xolair and Dupixent.In its IPO prospectus, Evommune noted how Xolair and antihistamines aren't effective in many of the people who have chronic spontaneous urticarias, and that Dupixent hasnt proven superior to other treatments in those who don't respond to Xolair. Rhapsido, a newly approved therapy from Novartis, is associated with certain side effects and drug interactions with other medications, too, the company said.Unlike the injectable Xolair and Dupixent, Evommunes lead candidate EVO756 is an oral medicine. Its also aimed at a different target, called MRGPRX2 an approach the company believes may provide quicker relief from disease symptoms.EVO756 is in a pair of Phase 2 studies in chronic spontaneous urticaria and atopic dermatitis that should both produce results next year.A second drug,EVO301, is also in mid-stage testing for atopic dermatitis. That treatment binds to and neutralizes a target called IL-18, a cytokine implicated in inflammation. Evommune acquired EVO301 last year from South Korean biotech AprilBio for $15 million upfront, in a deal that could eventually pay out another $460 million. The company plans to test EVO301 in a trial in ulcerative colitis next year, and could pursue other indications, such as Crohns disease, afterwards.Prior to its IPO, Evommune had raised $267 million in private financing, backed by investors such asEQT Life Sciences, Pivotal bioVenture Partners and RA Capital Management.Including Evommune, only a dozen biotech companies have gone public so far in 2025, about half of the nearly two dozen that had priced IPOs by this time last year,according to BioPharma Dive data. Since February, just two other drug startups, MapLight and LB Pharmaceuticals, have completed major stock offerings. '

iStock, cienpies With the shutdown ongoing, Evommune plans to close its IPO on Nov. 5 via a Securities Act clause that allows registrations to come into effect after a certain window has passed. After announcing its intentions to head to the public stock exchange a few weeks ago, Evommune on Thursday set its target initial public offering price . Evommune plans to put nearly 9.4 million shares of its common stock up for sale for between $15 to $17 apiece, resulting in a total IPO value of $140 million to $160 million. The California-based company also intends to tack on a 30-day option for underwriters to buy 1.4 million more shares. Once closed, the biotech will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol $EVMN. A key hurdle stands in Evommune’s way, however: The current ongoing federal shutdown . To get around this, the biotech expects to complete its IPO via Section 8(a) of the Securities Act , which provides that registrations can take effect not sooner than 20 days after filing. Evommune expects this date to fall on Nov. 5. If the shutdown ends before then, the biotech plans to “re-evaluate” the use of Section 8(a), according to a Thursday press release. Evommune earlier this month filed a securities document announcing its plans to go public. At the time, the biotech did not indicate the target price for the offering, but said that the money would primarily serve to “increase our financial flexibility.” Evommune also plans to use the proceeds to advance its pipeline of clinical-stage assets for inflammatory conditions. Evommune’s most mature asset is EVO756, an orally available small-molecule inhibitor of the MRGPRX2 receptor, which is commonly found on cells of the immune system and on peripheral neurons. According to the biotech’s website , blocking MRGPRX2 can disrupt the otherwise dysfunctional and hyperactive inflammatory cascade that underpins many diseases. EVO765 has recently completed a Phase II study in chronic inducible urticaria and is in mid-stage testing for chronic spontaneous urticaria, Evommune said in its prospectus. In testing for the former indication, the biotech detected “clinical activity” enough to also support EVO765’s advancement in the latter condition. Evommune is also launching an atopic dermatitis program for the drug. Aside from EVO765, the California biotech is also working on EVO301, a fusion protein that binds and neutralizes the inflammatory cytokine IL-18. Evommune in March started a program for EVO301 in moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis, with future plans to study the asset in ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, according to the prospectus. With the IPO terms set on Thursday, Evommune follows the path set by MapLight Therapeutics, which earlier this month announced a goal to bring in $227.3 million in IPO proceeds, to fund development of its Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia candidates. In September, LB Pharma landed on Nasdaq after closing a $285 million IPO, also to power its neuroscience pipeline. Other IPOs this year include Metsera , Maze Therapeutics and Aardvark .