New York-based LB Pharmaceuticals is preparing to file for an initial public offering as investor and pharma enthusiasm grows for the neuroscience space, a source familiar with the company’s plans told Endpoints News.
LB has remained largely under the radar since its founding. The biotech company closed a $75 million Series C at the beginning of the year and has raised a total of about $122 million, a source familiar with the company told Endpoints in January.
The company’s IPO plans were described by a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A filing could come within weeks, the individual said, and it wasn’t immediately clear how much LB would seek in an offering. The uncertain market conditions and fickle investor appetite for new biotech offerings could always change its plans. Earlier this month Australian-listed Telix Pharmaceuticals backed out of its planned US dual listing at the last minute.
LB is in mid-stage testing with an oral treatment candidate for schizophrenia. Named LB-102, the company has described it as a new and improved version of the decades-old medicine amisulpride, a D2 and D3 antagonist that has been sold in many countries but never approved in the US as an antipsychotic. LB has previously said it expects to run multiple Phase 3 trials in 2025 and ask for FDA approval in 2028. It could also test the drug candidate in patients with depression, bipolar depression and other indications.
Earlier this spring, LB briefly added a section to its website for SEC filings, but quickly removed the page after an inquiry from Endpoints.
A transition onto the public markets would give the biotech greater access to capital in a competitive neuroscience field.
Neumora went public last fall (though its schizophrenia program is on clinical hold), MapLight Therapeutics is reportedly eyeing a fall IPO and other private startups are also in the arena. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical giants have made large bets on biotechs working on schizophrenia treatments, with Bristol Myers Squibb acquiring Karuna Therapeutics for $14 billion and AbbVie dishing out $8.7 billion for Cerevel Therapeutics in recent quarters.
If it follows through with a listing, LB would add to a small list of other neuroscience biotechs that have gone public this year, including Rapport Therapeutics, Contineum Therapeutics and Alto Neuroscience. Others are in the works, including Alzheimer’s and CNS biotech Aprinoia Therapeutics, which passed on a planned SPAC combination last year.