Parabilis IPO: Innovative cancer drug developer debuts on the Nasdaq
Parabilis Medicines raised nearly $745 million in an upsized U.S. IPO and private placement / Photo: Unsplash / to Mathurin NAPOLY / matnapo
Premarket trading in shares of Parabilis Medicines, whose experimental therapy is designed to attack tumors from within, has started on Freedom’s client trading platform. The IPO set a record for the biotech sector. Later on Wednesday, the stock will debut during the Nasdaq regular session under the ticker symbol PBLS.
Details
Biotech Parabilis raised $670 million in its Nasdaq IPO, selling 33.5 million shares at $20 apiece, above its previously announced price range of $17-19 per share. The offering values the company at $2.3 billion, Reuters calculated.
The listing became the largest biotech IPO on record by funds raised, according to Fierce Biotech. The previous record belonged to obesity drugmaker Kailera Therapeutics, which sold $625 million worth of stock in its market debut in April this year.
The IPO was led by Leerink Partners, BofA Securities, Evercore ISI, Guggenheim Securities, and LifeSci Capital. The underwriters received a 30-day option to purchase up to 5 million additional shares.
In a concurrent private placement, Parabilis sold nearly 4.17 million shares at $18 apiece to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, raising approximately $75 million.
According to Parabilis’ prospectus, the company plans to use the proceeds from the transactions, among other things, to continue ongoing clinical trials, develop molecules for new indications, and for general corporate purposes.
About the business
Parabilis was founded in 2015 to develop technology licensed from a laboratory at Harvard University. That technology later became the foundation of the company’s Helicon platform, which it used to collect, process, and model data before creating continuously learning AI models to discover new molecules and precisely tune them to specific targets. The company now bases all of its development programs on that platform.
Its lead candidate is called zolucatetide. It belongs to a novel therapeutic modality designed not only to penetrate tumor cells but also to directly target flat intracellular protein surfaces. According to the company’s website, around 80% of biologically validated disease targets remain beyond the reach of existing medicines because they are located inside cells: some drugs can enter cells but cannot bind to flat surfaces, while others can interact with such structures but cannot penetrate cells. The company says its approach combines both capabilities and therefore has the potential to be applied across a broad range of diseases.
Parabilis is currently evaluating zolucatetide across multiple indications, including rare soft-tissue tumors, precancerous gastrointestinal polyps, liver cancer, and colorectal cancer. In 2027, the company plans to begin a phase III trial of the drug in patients with precancerous polyps.
The company currently generates no revenue, according to the prospectus. Since its founding, Parabilis has operated in the red: in 2025, the net loss totaled $145.9 million.
What analysts say
Parabilis’ programs have attracted significant interest from the investment community. The company announced its IPO just months after completing an oversubscribed $305 million Series F financing round, according to Genengnews. The round was co-led by RA Capital Management, Fidelity Management & Research Co., and Janus Henderson Investors. Since its founding, Parabilis has raised more than $800 million, according to company filings.
In May, one day before filing for its IPO, the company signed a collaboration agreement with Regeneron worth up to $2.3 billion. Thanks to that partnership, Parabilis “stands out by bringing a lot of credibility to the table with the Regeneron partnership, externally validating the company’s technology,” IPOX Research Associate Lukas Muehlbauer told Reuters. He also said: “The upsize is another strong signal that the biotech IPO pipeline is much healthier than it was last year.”
The main risks for the company are failure to secure regulatory approval, disappointing clinical trial results that could significantly affect the stock price, and future competition in the market, argues Freedom Broker analyst Alem Bektemirov. Freedom has assigned Parabilis a target price of $20.70 per share, implying 3.5% upside from the IPO price.
HDIN Research also cites the company’s dependence on China’s WuXi AppTec, which supplies active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the production of its drugs, as a risk. That supply chain could come under pressure if provisions of U.S. legislation barring the procurement of biotech products from certain companies in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ultimately take effect.
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Freedom clients will be able to trade Parabilis Medicines 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. Investors can participate by selecting the symbol PBLS on the Freedom platform.
