(Bloomberg) -- Septerna Inc. shares soared as much as 42% in their trading debut after the biotechnology company raised $288 million in an enlarged initial public offering.
The South San Francisco-based firm’s shares traded at $25.50 each at 12:15 p.m. on Friday in New York, above the IPO price of $18 apiece. The company had increased the size of the stock sale twice and sold 16 million shares on Thursday at a price above an initially marketed range.
The trading gives Septerna a market value of more than $1 billion, based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings.
The company is focused on developing oral small molecule drugs with an initial focus on endocrinology, immunology and inflammation, and metabolic diseases, according to its website.
The strong pricing and trading follows a spate of IPOs and follow-on offerings over the past two months from companies including device maker CeriBell Inc., drug developer Upstream Bio Inc., and MBX Biosciences Inc. Drug developers have raised $3.9 billion in IPOs on US exchanges this year, easily surpassing total proceeds in 2023 of $2.9 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. However, trading has been mixed, with seven of the 18 debutants trading below their offer prices.
The offering was led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., TD Cowen, Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. Septerna’s shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol SEPN.
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