Clinical-stage antibody company Generate:Biomedicines is the latest biotech to mull going public as momentum for IPOs continues to build.
The Flagship-founded biotech has yet to set out how many shares it plans to offer—or at what price. But Generate used a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday to explain that top of the list of priorities for the IPO proceeds will be GB-0895.
The anti-TSLP antibody is currently being evaluated in a pair of phase 3 studies aiming to enroll about 1,600 patients with severe asthma as well as in a phase 1 trial for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The asset has been engineered with the help of artificial intelligence to give it an extended half-life, with the aim of developing a long-acting therapy that only needs to be dosed every six months.
Announcing the launch of those phase 3 trials in December, Generate CEO Mike Nally said GB-4362 demonstrated “the potential of programmable biology to design optimal molecular solutions for patients with unprecedented speed and intentionality—in this instance, showing how an antibody engineered with AI can achieve a potentially best-in-class profile and advance into phase 3 studies within just four years.”
Funds will also be set aside to continue to take two less advanced candidates into the clinic. One of these, dubbed GB-4362, is a monoclonal antibody designed to neutralize free monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) as an adjunctive therapy to antibody-drug conjugates with an MMAE payload.
The other, called GB-5267, is an armored, MUC16-directed CAR-T cell therapy developed in collaboration with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and initially being aimed at platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
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Founded by Flagship in 2018 as a machine-learning-enabled drug discovery player under the leadership of Merck & Co. veteran Nally, Generate has had no problem attracting both investor interest and Big Pharma backing. In 2022, Amgen inked an agreement worth up to $1.9 billion biobucks to develop five initial programs, leaving room for the potential to nominate up to five more programs later. Amgen has already taken up its option in part, with the pair currently working on six undisclosed programs together.
Then, in 2024, Novartis inked a deal potentially worth more than $1 billion to develop protein therapeutics across multiple indications.
The biotech brought in $370 million via a series B back in 2021 followed by $273 million in a series C in 2023.
The opening weeks of 2026 have seen a renewed enthusiasm by biotechs for going public. Aktis Oncology kicked off the proceedings with a $318 million IPO last month, while Eikon Therapeutics listed on the Nasdaq this morning with a $381 million offering—both of which exceeded any of the handful of IPOs last year.
Tuesday, Veradermics said it raised $256 million in IPO proceeds, and its share price jumped more than 100% in subsequent trading. The company is focused on common aesthetic and dermatological conditions; its lead program is an oral, extended-release version of the popular hair loss brand Rogaine.
As for Generate, the company is joining a queue of other biotechs that have announced an interest in a public listing, including eye-focused SpyGlass Pharma and Belgian immunology biotech Agomab Therapeutics.
