In one of the biotechnology sector’s first initial public offerings this year, Structure Therapeutics said Thursday it raised $161 million in an upsized IPO. Headquartered in South San Francisco, California, Structure sold 10.74 million American depositary shares for $15 each.
The company’s shares started trading Friday on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol GPCR. Shares surged 73% in the company’s first day of trading, the best debut for a U.S. company since 2021, according to IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.
Structure is already in early-stage clinical trials with two drug candidates, one for obesity and Type 2 diabetes and another for pulmonary arterial hypertension and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Structure aims to go after the GLP-1 receptor in a different fashion, using oral small molecules instead of injectable drugs like Novo’s approved products and Lilly’s Mounjaro.
The company’s work is aided by computational drug discovery specialist Schrodinger, which is a partner to a variety of different biotechs and co-founded Structure.
At $161 million, Structure’s offering is higher than almost every biotech IPO that has priced in the past six months.
The only two companies to raise more via IPO are Third Harmonic Bio, which brought in $185 million in September, and Prime Medicine, which got $175 million in October.
Source: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/structure-therapeutics-ipo-obesity-diabetes/641915/