Food allergy biotech firm Lycia raises $317.5 million in US IPO. October 23, 2026 at 2:50 AM GMT+2 Takeaways by bloomberg aisubscribe. Lycia Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology firm focused on treatments for allergies and autoimmune diseases, raised $317.5 million in an upsized US initial public offering that priced at the top of its marketed range. The drug developer sold 17.64 million shares for $18 each, according to a statement Thursday. The biotechnology firm had marketed 14.7 million shares for $16 to $18 each, an earlier filing showed.

Biotech notches 31 IPOs already this year, with 4 more joining queue. October 22, 2026 | The sector's IPO tally has surpassed each of the past four years, with four October debuts adding momentum - but activity still remains well below the COVID-19 boom that saw nearly 100 public debuts in 2021. Biotech's IPO rebound isn't losing steam, with 31 companies going public so far this year and four more lining up to follow. This total greatly exceeds 2025's eight total IPOs, according to BioSpace's historical data, and also tops the slightly stronger years that come before. The industry saw 19, 13 and 17 IPOs in 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. This year's IPO class is still far smaller than the nearly 100 public debuts recorded in 2021, when pandemic-driven investment poured into the sector. October has ushered in four biotech IPOs thus far. Immunoregulatory medicine developer TRexBio, hypertension-focused Retension Pharmaceuticals, RNAi biotech City Therapeutics and AI-fueled Iambic Therapeutics all started trading this month. In addition, four other biotechs have recently filed to follow in their footsteps. Lycia Therapeutics is hoping to raise $227.8 million to advance its protein degrader pipeline, while Aspen Neuroscience plans to hit the market to fund development of its stem cell therapy sasineprocel for Parkinson's disease. Meanwhile, Bambusa Therapeutics has also mapped out IPO plans to push forward its immunology and inflammation bispecific antibodies. And most recently, NodThera, now rebranded as Rezera, outlined a public debut to advance its NLRP3 inhibitor ruvonoflast into a Phase 3 study for peripheral artery disease. BioSpace is launching an IPO dashboard to help the industry keep tabs on U.S. biotechs that have taken the public plunge in 2026. October 19, 2026 Breaking down 2026's IPOs, the first quarter leads the way, with 11 public debuts occurring - five of which happened outside of the U.S. The rest of the year has seen only U.S. debuts, with seven reported in the second quarter and nine in the third. By financing size, Parabilis Medicines' $670 million debut has been the largest of not only this year, but in biotech's IPO history. That was preceded by Kailera Therapeutics' $625 million IPO - another record-setting debut at the time. The third largest debut of 2026 came in September, when ADARx Pharmaceuticals raised $446.3 million. Gabrielle Masson is an award-winning biopharma editor and writer with more than seven years of journalism experience in life sciences and healthcare. Subscribe to the daily GenePool and weekly Manufacturing Brief newsletters she curates here, and contact her at [email protected].

Protein degrader specialist Lycia prices $318M IPO. Funds from the upsized offering will support a trio of protein-degrading medicines in development for allergic conditions as well as the autoimmune disorder Graves' disease. Published Oct. 22, 2026 Lycia Therapeutics, a maker of protein degrading medicines, has banked nearly $318 million in an initial public offering, the latest in a run of more than two dozen drugmaker IPOs in 2026. Like many other biotechs to go public this year, Lycia surpassed its projections, selling about 3 million more shares than it had anticipated. About two-thirds of the sector's IPOs in 2026 have exceeded $250 million in proceeds, according to BioPharma Dive data. Shares of Lycia begin trading Friday on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "LYCA." Lycia was founded in part by Nobel Prize winner Carolyn Bertozzi, a pioneer in so-called "click chemistry," a way to make new drugs by snapping together disparate molecules. The biotech's drugs, dubbed "LYTACs," or lysosomal targeting chimeras, are designed to find harmful proteins outside of a cell and draw them inside to be destroyed. Lycia believes this approach can help it eliminate proteins that are "inadequately addressed" by current treatments, according to a regulatory filing. Lycia has three drugs in development, led by LCA-0061, an antibody-small molecule conjugate for allergic conditions, and LCA-0321, a "protein-small molecule" for Graves' disease. Both are in Phase 1 testing, with data expected in 2027. Behind them is LCA-0062, another allergy-targeting drug, which could soon start testing and produce topline data as early as the second half of 2027. Both LCA-0061 and LCA-0062 go after immunoglobulin E, an antibody that defends the body from infections but can overreact and misidentify certain foods or pollen as a threat. In its IPO filing, Lycia argued that existing IgE-targeting medicines, such as Xolair, block but don't fully remove the antibody. They have other flaws, too, such as limited utility in "key food allergy populations." LCA-0061, by comparison, might more "deeply and durably" wipe out IgE, the company said. Lycia's follow-up drug, LCA-0062, could be dosed more flexibly than its predecessor. LCA-0321, on the other hand, degrades thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor autoantibodies that are prevalent in people with Graves' disease. This strategy is different from existing medications, which primarily manage symptoms. Lycia also believes LCA-0321 could have an advantage over other emerging therapies in development, as it targets a key driver of Graves' disease without broadly suppressing the immune system. Lycia's research drew the interest of Eli Lilly, which paid $35 million up front in a 2021 collaboration focused on pain and other immune diseases. In addition, Lycia has raised $267 million in venture capital since its inception. Versant Ventures is its largest shareholder, owning around 19% of the company prior to the IPO. Targeted protein degradation - a form of drugmaking that uses a cellular waste disposal system to trash tough-to-reach targets - has become an increasingly hot area of drug research over the past two decades. Early specialists in the field, among them Arvinas, Kymera Therapeutics and Parabilis Medicines, raised hundreds of millions of dollars in private funding and are now publicly traded. More recently, newer startups such as EpiBiologics and Vicinitas Therapeutics have launched with plans to take the technology in different directions. And U.S. regulators in May approved the first protein-degrading "PROTAC" medicine, Veppanu, for breast cancer.