Iambic Therapeutics is targeting a valuation of up to $805.8m through a planned US initial public offering (IPO), as investors continue to show interest in biotechnology despite challenging market conditions.
The Nvidia-backed AI based drug developer is offering approximately 9.38 million shares at $15-17 each. At the highest proposed price, the transaction would raise around $159.4m.
Founded in 2019 as Entos, Iambic applies artificial intelligence to the discovery and development of drug candidates for solid tumours.
According to its prospectus, the company’s most advanced candidate, IAM1363, targets HER2, a protein that drives some types of cancers, and is undergoing a Phase 1/1b trial in patients with solid tumours harbouring HER2 alterations.
Iambic combines its AI models with automated experimentation, generating data to test and refine predictions. The company says this approach helped it advance its first drug candidate into clinical testing in approximately two years.
Its partnerships span pharmaceutical research and technology, including collaborations with more established drugs makers.
In September, Iambic announced a multi-year agreement with AbbVie to develop small molecule therapies across immunology, neuroscience and oncology.
The collaboration will use Iambic’s Enchant v3 AI model to assess multiple drug design hypotheses in tandem. The companies aim to improve the identification of promising candidates by combining Iambic’s technology with AbbVie’s therapeutic expertise.
Under the agreement, Iambic will receive an upfront payment and could earn milestone payments and tiered royalties on sales of resulting products.
The proposed offering comes during an autumn IPO market affected by rising Treasury yields, share price volatility and geopolitical tensions.
Biotech has nevertheless been one of the few areas that has retained investor interest. For Iambic, the planned listing would bring its experimental medicines and discovery platform to public market investors.
J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, BofA Securities and Citigroup are the offering’s lead underwriters.
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