Dive Brief:

• Eikon Therapeutics, a high-profile drug startup that’s raised more than $1 billion in private funding since its formation in 2019, outlined plans on Friday to go public.
• Run by a group of former Merck & Co. executives including ex-research chief Roger Perlmutter and one-time clinical development leader Roy Baynes, Eikon aims to develop medicines for cancer and neurological diseases. Four are in human testing, the most advanced of which, EIK1001, is in a Phase 2/3 trial in advanced melanoma and a mid-stage study in lung cancer. An interim analysis is expected later this year, according to Eikon’s IPO filing. 
• Eikon was formed around a Nobel Prize-winning technology that helps scientists examine the way proteins move inside of cells. But it used dealmaking to find the drugs at the forefront of its pipeline. EIK1001, which targets a pair of so-called toll-like receptors, was licensed from Seven and Eight Biopharmaceuticals. Another deal, with Impact Therapeutics, gave Eikon two PARP inhibitors, another well-known kind of cancer medicine. 

Dive Insight:

New biotech stock offerings have been stuck in a rut for a long time now. 

A lengthy run that culminated with more than 100 drug companies going public in 2021 has since been followed by a string of slow years, as a more discerning funding climate forced biotechs to stay private for longer. A total of 11 companies raised about $1.6 billion in IPO funding in 2025. Both figures represented sector lows since at least 2018, according to BioPharma Dive data. 

Some industry watchers are expecting 2026 to be different. After a dismal first few months, biotech rebounded in 2025 as dealmaking surged and broader fears about drug pricing policies and tariffs dissipated. Positive clinical results were rewarded, in many cases, with higher valuations, an important indicator of sector health. Venture funding skyrocketed. And most of the companies that went public in 2025 ended the year trading above their debut prices. 

Those signs suggest “the IPO window in 2026 may begin to reopen,” analysts with the investment firm RBC Capital Markets wrote in a note to clients last week. 

The year’s first offering, from radiopharmaceutical drugmaker Aktis Oncology, was also one of the largest since the start of 2024. Eikon’s pitch is different, revolving around an unproven discovery platform to unearth novel medicines and the ability of a seasoned management team to “opportunistically in-license promising assets,” it wrote in its IPO filing. 

Three assets it acquired — EIK1001, EIK1003 and EIK1004 — are now deep into testing. Eikon claims that, unlike with other drugs that have historically targeted toll-like receptor proteins, EIK1001 can be administered systemically rather than directly into a tumor. That difference should enable EIK1001 to spur a stronger immune response, it said in its IPO filing. 

The company’s two PARP inhibitors EIK1003 and EIK1004, meanwhile, are designed to be more selective than similar, available therapies like AstraZeneca and Merck’s Lynparza. That could help them sidestep hematological side effects like anemia that prompt people to stop treatment. Eikon’s drugs may also be useful alongside chemotherapy, a combination strategy other PARP drugs have struggled with. Dose escalation work for both should be complete later this year, Eikon said.

Eikon’s next prospects, also for cancer, were discovered internally. One is for “MSI high” tumors, which have many DNA mutations. The other is being positioned as a next-generation version of the “androgen receptor antagonists” often used to treat hormone-sensitive tumors like prostate cancer.

Both are either nearing or just beginning human testing.