Cell therapy startup Artiva Biotherapeutics will go public on Friday morning in the 11th biotech IPO this year. Its Wall Street debut adds to the industry’s modest rebuilding in 2024 following a dismal two-year stretch for new biotech public offerings.
The company sold 13.92 million shares $ARTV at $12, raising $167 million. While the share price is a cut from the $14 to $16 range it targeted earlier in the week, it upsized the number of shares from a planned 8.7 million.
Fred AslanThe San Diego biotech’s Nasdaq listing was three years in the making. Artiva confidentially filed in March 2021, just two months after Vividion Therapeutics and Venrock veteran Fred Aslan joined as CEO. At the time, biotech capital nearly fell from trees and public debuts were a weekly or sometimes daily occurrence.
But the startup paused its plans and forged a pact with another cell therapy company known as Affimed. The two disclosed a tie-up in November 2022, just days after Artiva officially backed out of an IPO. Then, in October of 2023, it lost an alliance it had struck with Merck to work on NK cell therapy, according to a filing with the SEC. That deal could have been worth as much as $1 billion.
Artiva’s biggest holder is GC Cell, the Korean cell therapy company it was spun out from in 2019. It also counts 5AM Ventures, venBio and RA Capital, all of which were at 15% ownership leading up to the IPO.
Like many other cell therapy developers, Artiva has recently made autoimmune diseases a focus after starting in cancer. The biotech has a Phase 1 testing of its off-the-shelf NK cell therapy in patients with certain forms of lupus. It has projects in additional autoimmune indications and continues to test its experimental drugs in cancers, including B cell malignancies. The pipeline also has natural killer CAR treatment candidates for Hodgkin lymphoma, solid tumors and blood cancers with the help of partners GC Cell and Affimed.
The CAR NK space has undergone a series of setbacks in recent months with Caribou saying earlier this week it would drop research in the area and Catamaran Bio shutting down earlier in the year.
Artiva ended March with about $62 million. It had devoted about $11 million to R&D in the first quarter and approximately $50 million last year. A $120 million Series B in February 2021 was its last major funding round.
After Artiva, a string of biotechs hope to join the public markets, including cancer-focused Actuate and neuroscience company Aprinoia, which had previously tested the SPAC market. Industry insiders expect the pace of listings to slightly pick up later this year with multiple biotechs waiting in line for their ticker debuts as interest rate cuts come into focus. Multiple companies have reportedly submitted their confidential documents, including LB Pharmaceuticals, MapLight Therapeutics and Upstream Bio.