Biotech Funding Rebounds as Parabalis Sets New Record
Parabalis set a new record for biotech fundraising last week, raising $670 million at a $2.4 billion valuation. It overtook Kailera, a weight-loss treatment company that had led since April with a $625 million round, and surpassed Moderna’s long-standing record from 2018, when it raised $604 million in its first offering.
Founded in 2017, Parabalis skipped the overheated 2020 IPO wave, survived the lean years that followed, and is now heading toward the market with a cancer drug based on a new mechanism already ready for Phase III trials. The broader biotech market has recently seen several large offerings, including Avalyn Pharma’s $300 million raise, Seaport Therapeutics’ $225 million round led by Israeli-American Daphne Zohar, and Odyssey Therapeutics’ $304 million financing. Most of those deals were oversubscribed and have traded positively so far.
The rebound is being helped by relatively favorable interest rates and by a recovery from the post-COVID slump, when biotech valuations fell and early-stage companies struggled to fund clinical trials, leading to bankruptcies, layoffs, and weaker investor appetite. Over the past six months, mergers and acquisitions and the sudden rise of the obesity-drug market have renewed interest in companies at Phase II and III, though investors remain selective. Matt Lane of Milestone Advisors told Fierce Pharma that large fundraising targets themselves attract attention, because they can help a company stay independent if trials succeed.
Not every attempt succeeded. Summit pulled a planned second offering of $500 million after releasing seemingly positive data from an advanced cancer trial, suggesting the market was not fully convinced. The same article also highlighted Weizmann Institute commercialization unit Bina, Kimba.Ai’s $6.5 million raise for smell-based sleep treatment, SpliSense’s $13 million from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Nectin’s encouraging Phase I cancer results, and a €8 million Horizon grant to a Clalit-led AI project for epidemic prediction.
