After a few lackluster years, biotech IPOs have rebounded in 2026. A new record for the most cash raised by a biotech in an IPO was set in April only to be broken weeks later. To date, 13 life science companies have gone public this year — 17 if tools and diagnostics companies are included in the total.
Along with the IPOs, there’s been a surge of merger and acquisition activity. Ernst & Young counts about $132 billion in M&A deal value this year so far. There are some common themes in this surge of dealmaking, said Rich Ramko, a partner at EY. One is that almost all of these deals involved companies with late-stage assets. Many of this year’s newly minted public biotechs are led by management teams that have taken companies public before. Also, companies with platform technologies do better when they get their IPOs out.
There have been 13 biotech IPOs of size in 2026 so far. Ramko said he believes it’s possible for the sector to have that many or more in the second half of this year. But an open IPO window does not mean a return to the go-go days of 2021 and 2022. During a Tuesday session at the BIO Convention in San Diego, Ramko moderated a panel discussing what companies need to think about before going public. Here are some highlights:
Inside an Automated Healthcare Practice: Redesigning Care Around People, Not Paperwork
By reducing administrative burden and redesigning workflows around human needs, it creates space for what matters most: connection between clinicians and patients.
What’s the One Thing Biotechs Must Have Before an IPO?
In a word, investors, said Sharon Tetlow, managing partner, Portrero Hill Advisors. The biotech sector is different than almost any other industry. Retail investors follow the coattails of specialist investors, and biotech investments and IPOs are led by specialists. These investors have studied the company, its management team, and met with the company several times prior to meetings with institutional investors, Tetlow said. These are also the investors that will continue to support a company through its first follow-on investment as a public company.
“While the final syndicate comes together at the very last moment, it’s the result of a very long process.”
How to Find Investors
The Power of Real World Data to Study Women’s Health at Scale
Veradigm examines key clinical trends, comorbidity profiles, and treatment trends across adolescence, reproductive years, and peri-/post-menopause. Download it today!
Dan Angius, Nasdaq’s senior managing director, new listings and capital markets, said a good way to find identify potential investors is by looking at 13F regulatory filings, which publicly traded companies submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission to show their their large institutional investors. Angius said biotechs should look at the filings of comparable companies.
Angius cautioned that the process of identifying investors could take longer than many biotechs expect. Finding investors is about building relationships. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, companies could expect to have around 30 to 40 investor meetings. Now the average is 90 to 95. That means companies need to start early to get more opportunities. The relationship with the investor matters.
“When you’re in a meeting with an investor for the first time, small talk actually counts as long as you do it in an authentic way,” Angius said.
Sam Zucker, partner in Goodwin’s life sciences group, said identifying investors and developing relationships starts with a biotech’s Series A or B rounds. Following a financing round, a company could have informal conversations with their investors to see who would actually support an IPO. Most clients overestimate the support of their existing investor syndicate, Zucker said. It’s important to know who would support an IPO because with most biotech IPOs, most of the capital comes from existing investors. Zucker said some strategic conversations can lead to acquisitions. In the past year, a lot of the big M&A deals have happened because the parties did not want to wait for the capital markets to support an IPO.
Details, Preparation and Planning
Ramko said it’s important for a biotech company to hire the right chief financial officer. A first time CEO who has not taken a company public before will want a CFO with more of a Wall Street background. The right CFO can help the CEO through the process.
Levine said a biotech company can plan on needing about a year to prepare to go public if it’s been audited before. If not, companies should expect to need more time — so get the audit done. Also, matters such as acquisitions will affect the timing of an IPO. The consolidated results from that deal will need to be factored in before the company can go public. Taking a company public is a lot of work, Levine said. But making sure a company can stay public and meet the regulatory requirements to stay public requires a lot of preparation.
Keep Your Options Open
Many companies take a dual tracking approach in which IPO preparations happen parallel to discussions about an M&A deal. But Levine noted that there’s more than two tracks. Companies can pursue collaborations as yet another option. There are also multiple options for going public. SPAC mergers and reverse mergers continue to be options. Angius said it’s important for the two companies in a merger deal to be on the same page. A biotech that wants to merge with a shell company that’s also in the life sciences will speak the same language, whereas a business combination with a company in another sector becomes trickier.
A merger agreement can also lead to an acquisition. As an example, Angius pointed to Candid Therapeutics, a clinical-stage developer of T cell engagers for autoimmune disease. In March, Candid struck a deal to go public via a reverse merger with Rallybio. The information that Candid put out publicly as part of the reverse merger agreement set a price floor. Before the deal closed, UCB came in with a $2 billion offer to buy the company outright.
Photo: Angela Weiss /AFP, via Getty Images