Avalyn Pharma, a Boston biotechnology firm testing drugs against a tricky lung condition, revealed Wednesday its plans to go public.
Avalyn is making experimental medicines for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, a rare condition that causes progressive lung scarring, difficulty breathing and other serious health problems. An estimated 100,000 people in the U.S. have IPF, which can be managed by three approved medicines: Ofev, Esbriet, and, more recently, Jascayd.
All three treatments slow the disease in one way or another. Roche’s Esbriet, which hit the market more than a decade ago, helps prevent the buildup of scar tissue. Ofev, made by Boehringer Ingelheim, blocks certain cell-surface receptors implicated in fibrosis. Boehringer also makes Jascayd, which was approved last year and acts on a different target than Ofev.
Still, Avalyn noted in its IPO filing that all three options don’t stop disease progression entirely and are limited by “tolerability challenges” associated with being taken orally. Avalyn is hoping to show that inhalable formulations of Ofev and Esbriet that it has developed will prove more effective and easier to take. Those drugs, codenamed “AP01” and “AP02,” are in mid-stage testing. Data are expected by the end of 2027.
A third inhalable drug candidate that combines Ofev and Esbriet is in preclinical testing. Avalyn expects to launch an early study in humans by the end of the year.
Success against IPF has been difficult to achieve. Multiple drugmakers working on new treatments have run into clinical setbacks over the years and, upon its approval, Jascayd was described by Leerink Partners' Faisal Khurshid as a “modest advance” over existing treatments. But Ofev and Esbriet are both blockbusters, proving there are significant financial rewards available to those that can break through. Several are trying, among them Avalyn, Bristol Myers Squibb, AbbVie and United Therapeutics.
As of the end of 2025, Avalyn held $138 million in cash and cash equivalents, according to a securities filing. Previously known as Genoa Therapeutics, the company has raised more than $370 million in capital across four venture rounds, backed by a bevy of investors including Norwest Venture Partners, F-Prime Capital, Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds and SR One. Novo Holdings is its largest backer, owning just over 13% of company shares.
Biotech IPOs have continued at a slow but steady clip in 2026, matching the pace of new stock offerings from the last two years. But the median value of offerings has soared, hovering just over $287 million in 2026, compared to less than half that in the first quarters of 2024 and 2025.
With two drugs deep into clinical development, Avalyn is also testing a well-established blueprint for IPO success in recent years. More than two-thirds of biotechs that have priced an IPO since 2022 have had at least one drug in or past mid-stage testing at the time of their offering, according to BioPharma Dive data.
