Money Moves: These Philly-area biotech companies just went public via IPO and SPAC

Money Moves is a column where we chart the funding raises of tech companies across the region. Have a tip? Email us at philly@technical.ly.

Mineralys Therapeutics is Philly’s first IPO of 2023

It’s been a quiet couple of months for companies that had previously planned to go public as national tech markets went bust in 2022. A Radnor-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is the first of the Greater Philadelphia region to announce its IPO plans in 2023.

Mineralys Therapeutics, Inc. develops medicines to target diseases driven by elevated aldosterone, a steroid hormone that’s essential to sodium conservation in the kidney, salivary glands, sweat glands and colon. The company announced last week that the initial pricing of its public offering would include 12 million shares of common stock, with shared priced at $16. All shares are being offered by Mineralys itself, trading on Nasdaq with the symbol MLYS.

The offering, expected to close today, Feb. 14, is expected to raise $192 million, Mineralys said in a statement. After the initial day of trading, the share price had risen to $18.44, and shares are currently trading at just above $18. The company has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.8 million shares of common stock at the initial public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.

Mineralys closed a $118 million Series B round last summer, and it said this week that it plans to further its new drug candidate, lorundrostat. Mineralys recently completed its Phase 2 study in uncontrolled and resistant hypertension, and the financing will support advancing this program.

Orchestra BioMed’s SPAC is listed on the Nasdaq

Another area life sciences company, Orchestra BioMed, Inc., also hit the public market recently. The New Hope-based biomedical company partners with medical device companies to commercialize its products.

The company recently completed a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, called Health Sciences Acquisition Corp. 2 (HSAC2). The company is now operating as Orchestra BioMed Holdings Inc. Proceeds from the acquisition were $70 million, including $20 million in market purchases of stock in HSAC2. The stock shares, trading under OBIO on Nasdaq, were selling for $8.30 Tuesday afternoon.

As Technical.ly has previously reported, SPACs act as shell companies that exist solely for the sake of bringing other companies public through mergers and acquisitions. Going public through a SPAC is usually much faster than pursuing an IPO route, which can take over a year to finalize.

Orchestra BioMed raised a $110 million Series D in 2022 that included investment from medical device company Medtronic, in a move to further a potential treatment for patients with hypertension who have a cardiac pacemaker. That round and the money raised by the public offering is expected to fund operations of the company through 2026.

“With a strong balance sheet, a top-flight shareholder base, and world-class strategic collaborators, this transaction puts us in an excellent position to address the unmet needs of patients and physicians while seeking to generate differentiated growth for our stockholders,” said David Hochman, Orchestra BioMed’s CEO and cofounder, in a statement. “We have several important milestones ahead of us, including the expected initiation of pivotal trials this year for both [Orchestra BioMed products] BackBeat CNT and Virtue SAB. These innovative technologies are supported by strong proof-of-concept clinical data, fueling our excitement for Orchestra BioMed as it enters the public markets and the next phase of its corporate evolution.”