Finance Watch: Two SPAC Deals, Two IPOs Take Four Biopharmas Public

Surrozen Merging With Consonance-HFW Acquisition, Raising $212m

Public Company Edition: Mergers with special purpose acquisition corporations may be heating up, but in addition to the Surrozen and Tango SPAC deals Recursion and Biomea launched initial public offerings. Also, Organon sells $5.6bn worth of notes to fund spinout from Merck & Co.

Surrozen Inc. is raising $212m in 2021 as it prepares to enter the clinic in 2022, going public through a merger with the special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) Consonance-HFW Acquisition Corp. Surrozen, which is focused on tissue repair and regeneration through selective activation of the Wnt pathway, will garner $92m held in trust by the SPAC when the merger closes and raise $120m from a concurrent private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing.

The Surrozen/Consonance-HFW merger announced on 15 April was the second SPAC merger unveiled by a preclinical biopharmaceutical company in two...