While some analysts expect the 2025 IPO market to be relatively cool in the near-term, others anticipate more bids than in 2024.
Fresh off of the 2025 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, two private biotechs last week launched bids to trade publicly on Nasdaq.
In separate SEC filings, Massachusetts-based Sionna Therapeutics and Odyssey Therapeutics unveiled plans for initial public offerings (IPOs). Neither biotech has yet revealed a fundraising target, nor have they provided a specific timeline for their respective offerings. Once completed, Sionna will trade on Nasdaq as $SION while Odyssey will have the ticker symbol $ODTX.
With their IPO announcements, Sionna and Odyssey follow in the footsteps of Maze Therapeutics, which opened the 2025 IPO season earlier this month, and the fast-moving obesity biotech Metsera.
Despite an active first few weeks, analysts appear to be mixed about IPOs in 2025. Coming out of JPM25, where they spoke with “dozens of companies,” Jefferies analysts in an investor note on Saturday wrote that “IPO activity may be muted in the near-term.”
“Many companies seem to be pushing out timelines due to perceived micro uncertainty,” the analysts added.
In contrast, in its year-end Biopharma Recap report, William Blair analysts forecasted around 30 IPOs in 2025, pointing to “a wave of high-quality private companies” that could seek to go public this year. There were 17 IPOs in 2024, a “significant increase” from the 12 such offerings the year prior, according to the William Blair report.
Focusing on cystic fibrosis, Sionna is a clinical-stage company working on two stabilizers of the NBD1 domain of the CFTR protein, which in cystic fibrosis is rendered dysfunctional due to genetic mutations. Both assets are currently in Phase I development, which the biotech hopes to fund using its IPO raise, with an eye toward pushing these candidates into mid-stage studies.
Sionna will use its remaining proceeds for other R&D activities and general corporate purposes.
In March 2024, Sionna closed an upsized Series C funding round, raising $182 million to advance its cystic fibrosis programs. At the time, the biotech said that the money would go toward the development of its NBD1 programs, and that it would keep the company going through 2026. A few months later, in June, Sionna struck a licensing deal with AbbVie, gaining worldwide rights to advance two cystic fibrosis drugs.
Meanwhile, fellow Massachusetts biotech Odyssey operates in the autoimmune and inflammatory spaces and is developing OD-07656, a small molecule drug candidate being tested for ulcerative colitis. According to its SEC filing, Odyssey will use its IPO money to advance the asset through a Phase IIa study, which is set to start this year and is testing the drug as a monotherapy.
Odyssey is also working on two preclinical programs, including one small-molecule asset and one protein therapeutic. The IPO proceeds will also help Odyssey fund its two earlier-stage candidates through IND-enabling studies.
