Week of September 25, 2026

The Week at a Glance:

Healthcare capital markets remained constructive despite a less supportive macro backdrop, with continued IPO issuance, large-scale platform licensing and strategic M&A demonstrating sustained capital availability for differentiated assets. Activity remains highly selective: investors are focused on clinically validated assets and clear development plans, while strategic buyers continue to prioritize platform optionality, differentiated modalities and scarce capabilities. Overall, the market has continued to normalize, but remains disciplined, with high-quality assets able to attract meaningful capital and strategic interest.

• Rates Rise, Risk Appetite Holds: Equities advanced despite 10-year yields above 5%.

• Biotech IPOs Stay Open: ADARx raised $446M; Iambic and City filed S-1s.

• Platform BD Remains Strong: Lilly, Roche / Genentech and Novo signed multi-billion-dollar deals.

Markets Overview

The Nasdaq was up 2.1%, and the S&P 500 and Dow were up 1.2% and 0.3%, respectively, over the last week

• Higher yields did not derail risk appetite: large-cap growth led, biotech gained 1.6%, and small caps lagged. The divergence suggests investors are still funding differentiated growth, but remain selective on duration and quality.

The NYSE Pharma Index and NBI were up 0.5% and 1.6%, respectively, over the last week

Notable change in share price:

• Surrozen (NASDAQ: SRZN): Shares rose 108.4% after Merck reported positive Phase 2b/3 data for trispecific Wnt agonist Remigromig in DME, validating the Wnt pathway but showing higher rates of proliferative diabetic retinopathy and vitreous hemorrhage, which highlighted the potential benefit of Surrozen’s SZN-8141 combining Wnt agonism with VEGF inhibition

• GRAIL (NASDAQ: GRAL): Shares rose ~55% through September 24 after FDA briefing documents raised no major concerns regarding the safety or accuracy of GRAIL’s Galleri multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test and an FDA advisory committee recommended approval of the Premarket Approval (PMA) application

• Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX): Shares rose 35.7% after the Company reported positive maintenance data for VK2735, its dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist, showing superior weight maintenance following transition to either every other week or monthly dosing compared to those transitioning to placebo

Sources: Pitchbook, Biomedtracker, and CapIQ

Equity Markets

IPO

The IPO window continued to broaden, with ADARx pricing a $446.3M offering and Iambic and City Therapeutics filing to follow. However, the market remains highly selective, with clinical-stage IPOs still generating negative median aftermarket returns, suggesting access to the public markets is improving faster than overall performance.

 One biotech IPO priced last week and two filed their S-1s:

• ADARx Pharmaceuticals raised $446.3M in its IPO to advance agazisiran through Phase 2 and potential Phase 3 development across complement-mediated diseases, complete the Phase 3 STOP-HAE trial for onvuzosiran and support pre-commercial activities, while advancing ADX-626, ADX-077, and ADX-199 through early clinical development

• Iambic Therapeutics filed to raise up to ~$100.0M in an IPO to advance its lead HER2 inhibitor IAM1363, including toward potential registrational development, while advancing KIF18A inhibitor IAM217 and dual CDK2/4 inhibitor IAM-C1 into Phase 1/2 development and supporting working capital and general corporate purposes

• City Therapeutics filed to raise up to ~$100.0M in an IPO to advance CITY-FXI through Phase 1 and initiate a Phase 2 trial in total knee arthroplasty, advance CITY-RBP4 into Phase 1 development for Stargardt disease and geographic atrophy, and progress CITY-TFR2 through early clinical development in anemia of chronic disease, while supporting its RNAi platform and discovery programs

IPOs priced in 2025 and 2026 have generated a median and average return of 13.6% and 30.2% YTD, respectively

After-Market Performance by Stage:

• Clinical-stage after-market performance: 28.2% (average), (6.4%) (median)

• Commercial-stage after-market performance: 32.2% (average), 23.1% (median)

After-Market Performance by Sector:

• Biopharma: 28.2% (average), (6.4%) (median)

• MedTech: 29.3% (average), 17.6% (median)

Follow On

Positive clinical catalysts are translating quickly into financing opportunities, with Viking raising $500.0M across concurrent equity and convertible offerings following positive VK2735 data.

There was one follow-on offering last week totaling $275.0M:

• Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) priced a $275.0M public offering, consisting of 7.9M shares at $35.00 per share, to fund the continued clinical development, advancement and commercialization of VK2735 in obesity, continued development of VK3019, and other R&D, working capital and general corporate purposes; Viking concurrently raised $225.0M through convertible senior notes, bringing the combined financing to $500.0M

PIPE/RDO

PIPE / RDO activity was light this week, with just $11.5M raised across two transactions. Public capital formation was therefore concentrated in conventional IPO and follow-on channels rather than structured financing.

Licensing

Platform transactions again drove strategic BD, with large headline values across AI-enabled discovery, multispecifics, radioligands and cardiometabolic technologies. Milestone-heavy structures allow pharma to retain multi-program optionality while limiting upfront capital deployment ahead of technical validation.

M&A

M&A was concentrated, but strategically meaningful: Telix / ITM accounted for nearly all announced value and extends radiopharma consolidation upstream into isotope supply. Control of manufacturing infrastructure is becoming part of competitive advantage as the modality scales.

Venture Financing

Venture deployment remained selective but capable of supporting very large rounds, particularly for differentiated discovery platforms with advancing pipelines. Enveda and Basecamp illustrate continued concentration of capital around AI-enabled platforms with multiple shots on goal.