Finance Watch: IPOs Are In A Slump, But Already Public Companies Have Rallied

Public Company Edition: The last biopharma initial public offering in the US was on 11 November, but follow-on and other offerings are generating hundreds of millions of dollars. Among RNA drug developers, Ionis issued more than $500m in new debt, while Arrowhead raised $266.8m.

Initial public offerings in the US by biopharmaceutical firms have dried up since 89bio Inc. launched its IPO on 11 November, but already-public companies have successfully launched very large follow-on and other offerings to fund their research and development pipelines during the past few weeks.

The non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) drug developer 89Bio went public at $16 per share, rising 52.4% since the offering to close...