Odyssey Therapeutics has become the latest biotech to voyage to the public markets via an upsized $304 million IPO this morning.
The autoimmune- and inflammatory-disease-focused company first disclosed its ambition to sail to the Nasdaq back in January 2025 as part of a mini-wave of like-minded drug developers. But the biotech abandoned this endeavor five months later as the IPO waters grew stormier, with Odyssey’s leadership concluding the move was “not in the best interests of the company … at this time.”
Odyssey’s second venture has proved more successful, with the biotech today offering 15.5 million shares—above the 13.2 million shares it had predicted earlier this week. With the shares priced at $18—the top end of its anticipated range—the company expects to bring in gross proceeds of $304 million from the IPO. However, this figure also includes an adjacent private placement of 1.4 million shares to an affiliate of TPG Life Sciences Innovations.
The combined proceeds are already well above the $205.2 million net proceeds the company had been predicting on Monday. The haul could rise by around $41.8 million if underwriters fully take up their option to buy an additional 2.3 million shares at the same price.
Top of the list of spending priorities for the IPO proceeds is Odyssey’s lead RIPK2 inhibitor, dubbed OD-001. The company has earmarked $135 million for phase 2 trials of the asset for ulcerative colitis as a monotherapy and in combination with Takeda’s Entyvio.
The biotech has also said it will use $50 million to take its preclinical SLC15A4 program into a phase 1/2a trial. Odyssey believes inhibiting SLC15A4 has the potential to be more effective than addressing TLR7/8—a popular target for investigational autoimmune drugs—and expects to test this program for various types of lupus and other B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.
The company is led by Gary Glick, Ph.D., who previously spun immune-oncology startup Lycera out of his University of Michigan lab before later licensing Lycera’s assets to Celgene. Aside from Odyssey, Glick also cofounded and led IFM Therapeutics, which he departed in 2019 after deals with Bristol Myers Squibb and Novartis, and he cofounded and ran Scorpion Therapeutics, which was later acquired by Eli Lilly for $2.5 billion in January 2025.
Odyssey began its journey in 2021 with OrbiMed as the company’s biggest backer. Carl Gordon, Ph.D., a managing partner at the venture capital firm, called Glick and offered to fund anything he wanted to do.
Since then, Odyssey has had no problems bringing in the megarounds. As well as the $218 million that the company launched with, the biotech raised a $168 million series B in 2022, a $101 million series C in 2023 and a $213 million series D in September 2025.
Of the combined $726.5 million that Odyssey has raised to date, the biotech entered April with $175.7 million still in the bank.
The biotech’s stock will list on the Nasdaq Friday morning under the ticker “ODTX.” The company is following in the wake of Seaport Therapeutics and Hemab Therapeutics, which went public a week ago with IPOs over $250 million and $300 million, respectively, to fund their depression and blood-clotting pipelines.
Last month, obesity biotech Kailera Therapeutics made history with an upsized $625 million offering that served as a welcome sign that the IPO window remains open. After debuting at $16, Kailera’s stock closed trading Thursday at a healthy $22.47.
