Week of March 6, 2026
The Week at a Glance:
Markets Dip: The US-Iran conflict, which caused oil prices to soar, and a disappointing jobs report (~92K lost vs. a gain of ~50K expected) resulted in major indices sliding 1-3%
Déjà Vinay: Dr. Vinay Prasad will step down as head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) following renewed controversy around several regulatory decisions, marking his second departure in under a year after previously stepping down in July 2025 amid backlash tied to the agency’s handling of Sarepta’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapy
uniQure Huntington’s Program Faces Regulatory Setback: Despite prior FDA interactions that uniQure had framed as supportive of an accelerated approval path, the FDA’s latest feedback rejected reliance on Phase 1/2 data versus external controls and instead pushed for a prospective, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial for AMT-130, materially delaying the program’s path to approval
Markets Overview
The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow were down (2.0%), (1.2%), and (3.0%) respectively
Higher oil prices and a disappointing jobs report drove negative market sentiment for the week
The NBI and NYSE Pharma Index were down (4.2%) and (4.6%), respectively
Notable changes in share price:
Day One Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: DAWN): Shares jumped 65.9% after the company announced it was being acquired by Servier for $2.5B
Rallybio (NASDAQ: RLYB): Shares rose 44.7% after the company announced it was raising $505M in conjunction to a reverse merger with privately held Candid Therapeutics, a company developing TCEs for autoimmune diseases
Sources: Pitchbook, Biomedtracker, and CapIQ
Equity Markets
Source: CapIQ
No companies completed an IPO or filed an S1 last week
All 24 additional companies in the IPO queue are pursuing raises below $40M
IPOs priced in 2025 and 2026 have generated a median and average return of (11.5%) and 14.0% YTD, respectively. Half of newly public companies are trading above their offer price
After-Market Performance by Stage
Clinical-stage after-market performance (N=15): 30.7% (average), 6.7% (median)
Commercial-stage after-market performance (N=24): 8.7% (average), (12.4%) (median)
After-Market Performance by Sector
Biopharma (N=17): 17.0% (average), (5.2%) (median)
MedTech (N=23): 12.0% (average), (11.5%) (median)
Source: CapIQ
Follow-On Offering Markets:
There were 2 follow-on equity offerings totaling $37.0M last week, including:
MAIA Biotechnology, Inc. (NYSE American: MAIA) raised $30.0M to fund clinical development of ateganosine (THIO), a first-in-class telomere-targeting immunotherapy for NSCLC, including the pivotal Phase 3 THIO-104 trial in third-line checkpoint inhibitor-resistant patients and continued enrollment in the Phase 2 THIO-101 trial supporting a planned 2026 accelerated approval filing
Source: Biomedtracker
PIPE/RDO Markets:
There were two PIPEs / RDOs last week raising an aggregate of $522.5M, including:
Concurrent with its merger with Rallybio, Candid Therapeutics raised $505.0M to support the advancement of Candid's diversified pipeline of TCE programs through multiple clinical milestones, including the initiation and clinical readouts of Phase 2 studies for cizutamig, a B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) targeting TCE, in myasthenia gravis and interstitial lung disease (ILD). Investors included venBio Partners, Viking Global Investors, Cormorant Asset Management, Foresite Capital, Soleus Capital, TCGX, Vivo Capital.
Licensing
Sources: Pitchbook, Biomedtracker, and CapIQ
Sources: Pitchbook, Biomedtracker, and CapIQ
M & A
Venture Financing
Sources: Pitchbook, Biomedtracker, and CapIQ
Nordic-American Healthcare Conference
Registration is open for our annual healthcare equity conference, the Nordic-American Healthcare Conference (NAHC). This event brings together large and mid-cap public and private, IPO-ready life science companies from both the US and Nordic regions, along with US institutional investors. Participating companies will present their equity stories and showcase leading products that offer significant advancements in patient care, making them highly attractive investment opportunities.
Announcing our 2026 keynote speakers:
Day One: Scott Gottlieb, MD, former commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration
Day Two: Katrina Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences for Columbia University
Nordic-American Healthcare Conference
March 25-26, 2026, New York City
A MAP to the Future of Targeted Oncology
The latest in our series of healthcare analyst reports focuses on the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, one of the most commonly perturbed signaling pathways in human cancer. Flowing from RAS to RAF to MEK to EKR, the pathway is a master regulator of cell growth and survival. Therefore, the amplification of proteins or mutation of key signaling domains are a common hallmark of cancer.
HEALTHCARE MARKET REPORTS ARCHIVE
About DNB Carnegie | Back Bay
DNB Carnegie | Back Bay drives global healthcare growth and innovation by providing a full range of strategic advisory and financing capabilities along the continuum of life science and healthcare company development. The DNB Carnegie | Back Bay Partnership is a marketing term referring to a strategic agreement between DNB Markets, Inc. and Back Bay Life Science Advisors. More information about the DNB Carnegie | Back Bay Partnership can be found here.
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