Avalyn Pharma, Inc.

A trio of biotechs priced their IPOs on Thursday into Friday morning, setting the stage for their public trading debuts with more than $850 million combined. Seaport Therapeutics, Hemab Therapeutics and Avalyn Pharma are the latest winners, jumping onto the Nasdaq as the biotech IPO window continues to open up after a long freeze. Avalyn started trading Thursday after an expected $300 million raise , while Seaport and Hemab will begin trading Friday with anticipated raises of $254.9 million and $301.5 million respectively. The bump in IPOs has followed a rising market for biotech stocks, a run of dealmaking by large pharma companies, and renewed enthusiasm for venture capital investments in newer, riskier companies . Seaport is working on treatments for CNS disorders with much of the same team from Karuna Therapeutics, which was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb for $14 billion thanks to its schizophrenia drug KarXT (now approved as Cobenfy). Led by Daphne Zohar, the biotech currently has two clinical programs for major depression and generalized anxiety. Hemab is developing therapies for various bleeding disorders. Its lead drug is the bispecific antibody sutacimig, which is expected to begin a Phase 3 study in one disorder and is currently in a Phase 2 trial for another. The biotech’s IPO comes after a $157 million Series C last October. Avalyn, whose stock $AVLN jumped 63% on its first day of trading Thursday, is working to develop inhaled versions of drugs approved for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Avalyn expects the IPO to help fund Phase 3 studies for at least two programs, though the company is still waiting for mid-stage readouts in the second half of next year. Avalyn initially sought $182 million for the IPO, but now expects the raise to reach $300 million. The biotech put together a $100 million Series C in July 2025. “Taking Avalyn public is a defining milestone, an opportunity to build a category-defining company in a disease area that has been waiting far too long for innovation,” Avalyn CEO Lyn Baranowski said in an emailed statement.

→ Boehringer Ingelheim has brought in Christie Bloomquist as SVP, corporate affairs, US human pharma, and she’ll be president of the Boehringer Cares Foundation. Peer Review informed you about her move to Astellas in 2023, and she had been VP, US strategy and government affairs at the Japanese drugmaker since January 2025. She was also in charge of US corporate and government affairs at AstraZeneca . “What drew me in was how both comfortable and challenged I felt with everyone I met during the interview process,” Bloomquist wrote in a LinkedIn post . “These are people I genuinely want to work with, in a place where I know I can contribute.” → In another LinkedIn discovery, Stefan Irion is stepping down as CSO of Bayer ’s BlueRock Therapeutics . Irion was promoted to this position in 2023 and started working at BlueRock “in its earliest days, when the idea was audacious and the roadmap mostly lived on whiteboards and in late‑night conversations,” he wrote . BlueRock has moved into Phase 3 with bemdaneprocel , a cell therapy to treat Parkinson’s disease. → Not only did Incyte get a pair of Phase 3 wins in nonsegmental vitiligo this week, its search for a CFO is over . Suky Upadhyay replaced Dan Florin as CFO of Zimmer Biomet in 2019 and would tack on the role of EVP, global operations. Upadhyay is currently on the board of directors at Vertex and led global financial operations at Bristol Myers Squibb from 2016-19. You may recall that Christiana Stamoulis left Incyte in September to become CFO at Mallinckrodt , which is now known as Keenova after the merger with Endo . Zimmer Biomet said that Paul Stellato will fill in as interim finance chief. → Shortly before landing on the Nasdaq in a $255 million IPO this week, Seaport Therapeutics snagged neuroscience veteran Sharon Mates for its board. The mid-stage neuroscience biotech now has the former chair and CEO of Intra-Cellular Therapies to help guide it toward commercialization. Mates led Intra-Cellular all the way from the ground up, put it on a commercial footing, and took it to a $14.6 billion exit to Johnson & Johnson . → Jennifer Smoter said in a LinkedIn post that she’s “thrilled to return to the biopharmaceutical industry” as chief communications & governance officer at Takeda . Smoter led the communications team during her four and a half years with UnitedHealth Group , and she was chief external affairs & communications officer at Intellia Therapeutics . As part of its multiyear restructuring , Takeda recently ended its partnership with Denali Therapeutics . The Japanese pharma reports its FY2025 earnings on May 13. → A spokesperson tells Peer Review that AI-focused startup Basecamp Research has tapped Richard Pearce as CBO after raising the curtain on its Trillion Gene Atlas project last month. Basecamp plucked him from Biogen , where he was head of business development, strategy and portfolio management in the back half of his 11-year career with the company. Earlier, Pearce served as business and operations director of the Biodevelopment Centre at Merck KGaA . “By training foundation models on the largest evolutionary dataset ever assembled, Basecamp is building something fundamentally new for biology,” Basecamp CEO Glen Gowers said in a statement. “Richard brings a rare combination of deep pharma experience and first-principles thinking — exactly what’s needed to translate this technology into real-world impact.” → Boston-based mRNA startup Strand Therapeutics has hired its first-ever CFO. Kunal Bhatia started his career at Credit Suisse and Jefferies , and has been a managing director in the healthcare investment banking groups at Oppenheimer and TD Cowen . Kinnevik , Regeneron Ventures , Amgen Ventures and Eli Lilly participated in Strand’s $153 million Series B last summer. → Coy Stout is retiring after 30 years in industry, with the last year and a half as executive director of US patient support at AstraZeneca. He’s had stops along the way at Lykos , Brii Biosciences and nearly two decades at Gilead . “While I expected this part of my journey as a market access leader to last a little bit longer,” Stout wrote on LinkedIn, “life has a way of making priorities clear. I’m stepping away from the industry to focus on work-life balance and on one of the most important roles of my life: being a spouse and caregiver to someone living with advancing Parkinson’s disease.” → Now under the direction of ex- bluebird bio boss Andrew Obenshain , Inventiva has welcomed three new execs, including former CureVac finance chief Axel-Sven Malkomes . He’ll be the first person besides Jean Volatier to step into the CFO slot in the company’s history, and Volatier will still have a presence at Inventiva as EVP of finance & corporate social responsibility. Meanwhile, Inventiva has recruited Susan Coles as chief legal officer and Pamela Herbster as chief people officer. Coles has already been general counsel at Inventiva twice, and Herbster was elevated to chief people & experience officer at Sage before Supernus bought the embattled drug developer for $561 million. → Newly public Avalyn Pharma has recruited Adam Golden as general counsel and head of business development, and Frank Salisbury as SVP of commercial. Golden comes to Avalyn from London-based law firm Freshfields , where he was a partner and global head of life sciences. Salisbury is a Sage and Genentech alum who spent the last four years with PureTech Health as head of commercial and product strategy. → Lis Leiderman has returned to Peer Review for her fourth CFO job this decade. Her LinkedIn page indicates that she succeeded Rob Lauzen at Dutch neuro biotech Prilenia Therapeutics in March. Leiderman worked for Decibel Therapeutics (2020-22), Atsena Therapeutics (2022-23) and Dewpoint Therapeutics (2024-25), and she sits on the board of directors at Autolus Therapeutics . Prilenia’s only candidate is an S1R agonist called pridopidine for ALS and Huntington’s disease. → Sanofi Genzyme vet Michael Panzara has replaced co-founder Andreas Muehler as CMO of Immunic . Panzara had been CMO of Blackstone ’s Neurvati Neurosciences and its subsidiary GRIN Therapeutics , which collected $50 million upfront from Angelini Pharma for the ex-North America rights to radiprodil . He also vaulted to CMO and head of therapeutics discovery & development during a six-year run at Wave Life Sciences . → Radiotherapy shop Convergent Therapeutics has selected Merck vet Andrew Davis as chief business and strategy officer. Davis concluded his stint as CBO of Dynavax after it was purchased by Sanofi for $2.2 billion, and he held that same role at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals . → Christian Schade has been named chairman of the board at German biotech CatalYm . Since selling Halda Therapeutics to J&J for north of $3 billion last fall, Schade joined Frazier Life Sciences as a senior advisor. After a stint as CEO of Aprea Therapeutics , he landed at Flagship Pioneering in early 2023 as a growth partner. → Marea Therapeutics CEO Josh Lehrer has locked up a spot on the board of directors at Fulcrum Therapeutics . With a series of roles over a six-year period at Global Blood Therapeutics , including CMO, his input on Fulcrum’s lead sickle cell asset pociredir should be beneficial. Lehrer ran Graphite Bio until it merged with Lenz Therapeutics . → Deborah Birx ’s bacteriophage biotech Armata Pharmaceuticals has appointed Daniel Gilmer to its board of directors. Gilmer was elevated to senior director, commercial quality US team lead at Pfizer last year. → In other boardrooms, Raymond Dwek will retire at United Therapeutics , but he’ll stay on the scientific advisory board; Boehringer Ingelheim’s Lykke Hinsch Gylvin is headed to ProQR ; Troy Cox and Alumis CEO Martin Babler are in line to replace Robert Malenka and Jim Trenkle at Maplight Therapeutics , according to an SEC filing ; Santhera has added ex- Idorsia CEO Srishti Gupta ; and InduPro Therapeutics CEO Prakash Raman has picked up a board seat at Olema Oncology .

A pair of biotechs successfully made it through the IPO window with upsized offerings that collectively brought in $550 million late on Thursday. Shares in Hemab Therapeutics and Seaport Therapeutics continued to climb on their first day of trading Friday, signalling investors' appetites for biotech IPOs remain unsatiated. The duo of debuts comes a day after Avalyn Pharma made its $300-million NASDAQ entrance and posted more than a 60% trading gain on Thursday. Together with Kailera Therapeutics' record-breaking $625-million offering, biotechs have now collectively raised close to $1.5 billion from IPOs in the second quarter (see – Vital Signs: Technologies to watch from the latest newco pool).Hemab's debutThe larger of the two raises went to Hemab, which is developing treatments for bleeding disorders. The company brought in $301.5 million through the sale of 16.8 million shares — bumped up from its original offer to sell 11.8 million shares — at $18 apiece, the high end of its proposed range. Its share price climbed about 70% to $30 during afternoon Friday.Prior to going public, Hemab had collected close to $350 million in private funding, including a Novo Holdings-backed $157-million series C in October. The biotech's lead asset is sutacimig (HMB-001), a bispecific antibody designed to bind endogenous Factor VIIa with one arm and TLT-1 on activated platelets with the other, enabling the accumulation of endogenous Factor VIIa in the body and the protein's recruitment to the surface of platelets. A Phase II trial is evaluating sutacimig in patients with congenital Factor VII deficiency.The company's second programme, HMB-002, is in Phase I/II testing for von Willebrand disease (VWD), a disorder caused by defects in VW Factor (VWF) that lead to frequent mucocutaneous bleeding events. The antibody targets the C-terminal CK domain of VWF to prevent degradation of the protein.Seaport's offeringFor its part, Seaport sold 14.2 million shares at $18 each to raise $254.9 million. The offering surpassed its initial proposal to sell 11.8 million shares, and priced at the high end of its range. The biotech's shares gained about 25%, rising to $22.50 during afternoon trade on Friday. Founded by PureTech Health in 2024, the drugmaker is developing neuropsychiatric medicines designed to overcome the limitations of current central nervous system (CNS) disorder treatments. The company raised $325 million privately before its IPO. Seaport's Glyph platform uses the lymphatic system to enable and enhance the oral administration of drugs. Its lead candidate is SPT-300, an oral prodrug of the endogenous neurosteroid allopregnanolone in Phase IIb testing for major depressive disorder. An intravenous formulation of the drug is marketed by Sage Therapeutics as Zulresso (brexanolone) to treat postpartum depression, but must be administered via a 60-hour infusion.The company in March also pocketed a $15-million grant from the US Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to advance GlyphCele, an oral prodrug of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib, for metabolic diseases and pancreatic cancer. GlyphCele, developed in collaboration with Monash University, is engineered with the Glyph platform to be absorbed through the intestinal lymphatic system.