Week of August 1, 2025

The Week at a Glance:

• Stocks Fall Due to Weak Labor Market & Tariffs: Despite strong GDP data and tech earnings, major indices fell by an average of (~2.5%) thanks to new tariffs and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) eye-popping job market revisions

• Sarepta’s Saga Continues: After one week of recommending that Sarepta stops the shipment of Elevidys, the FDA has approved the resumption of Elevidys shipments for ambulatory DMD patients

• Dr. Prasad’s Short Tenure: Vinay Prasad resigned from the FDA as the Director of CBER and Chief Medical and Scientific Officer after three months in the role. The exit comes amid escalating pressure from Trump-aligned figures and backlash over actions blocking and then restoring Elevidys shipments

• PE Eyes Biotech: KKR acquired a majority stake in HealthCare Royalty Partners (HCRx), and Bain Capital spun out a NewCo with five I&I assets from BMS. HCRx was a presenting company at the 2025 DNB//Back Bay Nordic American Healthcare Conference

Markets Overview

• The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow finished with losses of (2.4%), (2.2%), and (2.9%), respectively

  • US GDP grew at a 3% rate in Q2 (better than the expected 2.3%)

  • The Fed held rates steady for the fifth time in a row between 4.25-4.5%

  • President Trump imposed new tariffs on 69 trading partners (most notable of which was Canadian tariffs increasing from 25% to 35%)

• The July job market numbers were weak compounded with negative revisions to prior months

  • Unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in July from 4.1% in June

  • The BLS reported that just 73K jobs were added in July (100K was expected)

  • May and June job numbers were revised down by 258K (May only added 19K and June 14K)

  • President Trump directed his team to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her of releasing inaccurate employment data

Similar to broader markets, healthcare indices finished with losses last week with the NBI and NYSE Arca Pharma Index finishing down (1.5%) and (5.5%), respectively

Notable changes in share price:

• Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA): Shares ended down (19.3%) after the Company lowered its 2025 revenue forecast from around $2.5B to $1.5-$2.2B, along with cutting ~10% of their workforce

• Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO): Stock fell (32.1%) after slashing its 2025 sales growth guidance from 13-21% to 8-14%, reflecting softer-than-expected US uptake of Wegovy and Ozempic

Sources: Pitchbook, Biomedtracker, and CapIQ

Equity Markets

IPO Markets:

Shoulder Innovations (NYSE: SI) completed its IPO, raising $75.0M to support development and commercialization of its shoulder arthroplasty implants and visualization software

No companies filed an S-1 last week

19 companies in total remain in the queue, of which only one intends to raise more than $30.0M in proceeds

Year-to-date, companies that have gone public in 2025 have had a median loss of (8.5%)

Follow-On Offering Markets:

There were seven completed follow-on equity offerings last week totaling $379.9M, including:

• Prime Medicine (NASDAQ: PRME) raised $144.2M to advance its portfolio of liver, lung, immunology, and oncology programs using its “Prime Editing” gene-editing platform

• Celcuity (NASDAQ: CELC) raised $69.7M to be used for future commercial launch costs, clinical trial expenses, and additional business development mandates

• Larimar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: LRMR) raised $69.0M in a follow‑on offering to accelerate development of lead candidate nomlabofusp, a potential treatment for Friedreich’s ataxia, as well as support research and development for other, undisclosed rare disease programs

• I‑Mab (NASDAQ: IMAB) raised $65.0M in a follow-on offering to fund Phase 2 clinical development of lead asset givastomig in gastric, gastroesophageal junction, and esophageal cancers

PIPE/RDO Markets:

• There were two PIPEs/RDOs last week totaling $8.6M

Licensing

M & A

Venture Financing

CONNECT with the Authors >>

MEET THE DNB // BACK BAY TEAM >>