Eliem Therapeutics joined the ranks of publicly traded companies from Washington state, pricing 6.4 million shares at $12.50 and raising $80 million. It originally planned to sell 4.5 million shares at $17 to $19.
Eliem will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker ELYM. Update: Shares ended trading Tuesday at $15.90, up 27%.
The Redmond, Wash.-based startup — founded nearly three years ago and led by former Juno Therapeutics executive Bob Azelby — is the latest biotech company from Washington state to go public. In the past 12 months, eight other biotech companies from the state have priced IPOs or gone public via SPACs.
Still in the early stages of development, Eliem is targeting its technologies to areas such as chronic pain, psychiatry, epilepsy and other disorders related to the central nervous system.
It has yet to generate any product revenue, and as of March 31 had accumulated a deficit of $46.7 million.
That’s not uncommon for biotechnology companies, some of which take 10 years or more to develop a marketable drug.
Even still, Eliem is small. It employed just nine people at the end of last year, and just 25 by the end of July. It reported no physical office space. The company raised two rounds of venture funding earlier this year totaling $140 million, including a $60 million round in May.
The basis of the company’s technology comes from two acquisitions. In February 2019, Eliem acquired NeoKera, and then eight months later purchased Athenen Therapeutics. Its lead drug candidates are being developed for treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain and pain associated with sciatica. Other drugs under development include potential treatments for major depressive disorder, perimenopausal depression and focal onset seizures, the most common type of seizure in people with epilepsy.
“Our product candidates are focused on addressing neuronal excitability disorders with large, well-defined markets, where clinical and regulatory endpoints are clearly established and development pathways are precedented, yet current therapies leave patients with efficacy, safety or tolerability challenges,” the company wrote in its SEC filing.
