One year after snagging $310 million in a financing round, LianBio raised $325M in its initial public offering. Its stock begins selling today on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LIAN.”
One year after snagging $310 million in a financing round, Shanghai-based LianBio raised $325 million in its initial public offering. The company’s stock begins selling today on the Nasdaq Exchange under the ticker symbol “LIAN.”
It was only in 2020 when LianBio roared out of the gate with multiple deals in hand to develop therapies for the Asian market. The company is advancing a diversified portfolio aimed at multiple indications, including respiratory, oncology, ophthalmology and inflammatory diseases. Two of the assets in LianBio’s quiver are in late-stage development, one for cardiovascular disease and the other in cancer.
The company’s lead cardiovascular asset is mavacamten, a small molecule therapeutic that reversibly binds to myosin to directly target the excess contractility and impaired relaxation underlying hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Mavacamten has been in development by MyoKardia, which was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb last year for $13.1 billion. Following the acquisition, BMS filed a New Drug Application (NDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March for mavacamten. The FDA is expected to make a decision on that asset by Jan. 28, 2022.
The NDA was based on the Phase III EXPLORER-HCM trial results, which evaluated mavacamten in patients with symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM) compared to placebo. Trial results showed that mavacamten demonstrated a robust treatment effect, with clinically meaningful improvements in symptoms, functional status, and quality of life. Additionally, the trial showed that mavacamten can relieve left ventricular outflow tract obstruction.
LianBio’s primary oncology asset is infigratinib, a first-in-class, selective fibroblast growth-factor receptor inhibitor developed by QED Therapeutics. The drug candidate has been in development for cholangiocarcinoma and urothelial carcinoma, among other FGFR-driven diseases. LianBio is pursuing the study of infigratinib in first-line cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the liver’s bile ducts, in mainland China.
Infigratinib is an orally administered, ATP-competitive, FGFR1-3 tyrosine kinase inhibitor. A New Drug Application has been submitted to the FDA for patients with previously treated advanced cholangiocarcinoma harboring an FGFR2 gene fusion or rearrangement. The NDA has been granted Priority Review designation and is being reviewed under the Real-Time Oncology Review.
For its IPO, LianBio sold 20,312,500 American depositary shares for $16 per share. Additionally, the company has granted the IPO underwriters the option to acquire up to 3,046,875 additional shares at the initial public offering price. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Jefferies LLC, and BofA Securities, Inc. act as joint book-running managers for the offering. Raymond James is acting as lead manager for the offering.
