ADARx IPO: Late-stage developer of gene therapies goes public

Early trading in shares of ADARx Pharmaceuticals, a small company specializing in rare-disease treatments, has started on Freedom’s client trading platform. ADARx partners include pharma giant AbbVie, which has already paid the company $335 million under a collaboration agreement and has agreed to purchase up to $100 million of its shares. The stock is due to begin trading during the Nasdaq regular session later on Friday under the ticker symbol ADRX.

ADARx has raised $446.3 million in an upsized Nasdaq IPO. It sold 26.25 million shares at $17 apiece, at the top of its previously announced $15-17 range. At the same time, AbbVie has agreed to purchase up to $100 million of the small biotech’s stock in a concurrent private placement. Based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings, ADARx’s market valuation can be estimated at $1.8 billion, according to Bloomberg

The offering was led by JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, TD Cowen, UBS Investment Bank, and LifeSci Capital. The company granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 3.9 million additional shares.

ADARx plans to use part of the proceeds to complete clinical trials of its lead candidate, onvuzosiran, according to its IPO prospectus. The drug is being developed to treat hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disease characterized by sudden swelling attacks that can be life-threatening.

ADARx was cofounded in 2019 by current CEO Zhen Li, a scientist with 20 years of industry experience. In an interview with industry news site BioSpace, she recalled that her family of engineers wanted her to follow in their footsteps, but she chose science instead. “I always felt that was my biggest rebellion,” she said.

Li received a Ph.D. in chemistry and chemical biology from Harvard before joining Merck. She later went to work at Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, which uses roughly the same technology as ADARx to develop its drugs. Known as siRNA therapeutics, or more simply RNA therapeutics, the technology selectively degrades the messenger RNA associated with a specific gene without altering the DNA itself. This temporarily blocks production of the disease-causing protein. ADARx currently has five experimental drugs across several therapeutic areas. Three, including onvuzosiran, are in clinical development, while two have yet to start human trials.

The company does not yet generate revenue from product sales and finances its operations through capital raises. Its early investors included specialist fund OrbiMed. Later investors included SR One Management, a venture firm spun out of pharma giant GSK, as well as Sirona Capital, Bain Capital, and BlackRock. ADARx has raised around $350 million across four funding rounds.

In 2025, ADARx signed an agreement with AbbVie to jointly develop new drugs. Under the deal, the pharma giant has already paid ADARx $335 million upfront and could pay more than $7.8 billion in additional option and milestone payments should the development programs prove successful. The arrangement demonstrates a major industry player’s confidence in the start-up’s RNA platform, reducing the risk for retail investors, IPO specialist Donovan Jones argues in a Seeking Alpha column.

The main risks for the company are that its drugs may not get approved and that clinical trials may show weak results, either of which could significantly affect its stock price in the future, as well as competition from peers, reckons Freedom analyst Alem Bektemirov. Taking these risks into account and based on peer valuations, Freedom has set a target price of $18.10 per share for ADARx, implying 6.5% upside from the IPO price.

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Freedom clients can trade ADARx Pharmaceuticals shares before the start of the main U.S. session. Premarket trading will open 2-3 hours early, at 15:30-16:30 Astana time. To start trading, select the symbol ADRX on the Freedom platform.