For Eikon Ther­a­peu­tics, its IPO feels more like some­thing it’s sur­viv­ing rather than cel­e­brat­ing.

The Bay Area start­up is one of biotech’s most promi­nent pri­vate­ly-held com­pa­nies, af­ter rais­ing more than $1 bil­lion to ad­vance its No­bel Prize-win­ning sci­ence. But to make the tran­si­tion from VC-backed uni­corn to pub­lic com­pa­ny, it has had to slash its val­u­a­tion by near­ly three-quar­ters from a $3.6 bil­lion peak in 2023 when it was still pri­vate, to a much more mod­est $971 mil­lion for its Nas­daq de­but Thurs­day.

It priced its shares for the IPO at $18, the top end of the range it be­gan mar­ket­ing last week. The stock is ex­pect­ed to be­gin trad­ing lat­er in the day, as part of a group of IPOs this week, plus the fil­ing of an­oth­er rich­ly-fund­ed start­up: AI-fo­cused Gen­er­ate:Bio­med­i­cines.

On­line health­care provider Hims & Hers said it would start sell­ing a com­pound­ed ver­sion of No­vo Nordisk’s We­govy pill on Thurs­day, just a month af­ter the FDA’s ap­proval of the brand-name pill ver­sion of the block­buster weight loss in­jec­tion.

Him­s' ag­gres­sive move is al­most cer­tain to prompt ef­forts by No­vo to stop the com­pet­ing drug, which could un­der­cut sales of what No­vo hopes will re­vive its block­buster obe­si­ty fran­chise. It al­so comes with vast im­pli­ca­tions for oth­er drug­mak­ers and the US sys­tem of patents and sales ex­clu­siv­i­ty, as it sug­gests that al­most any brand-name drug could be un­der threat from com­pound­ed com­peti­tors.

For the first time in a while, in­vestors seem ex­cit­ed about Bris­tol My­ers Squibb’s late-stage pipeline.

Bris­tol My­ers on Thurs­day flagged at least 10 po­ten­tial da­ta read­outs com­ing this year that could lead to new ap­provals or la­bel ex­pan­sions for ex­ist­ing drugs. An­a­lysts quick­ly picked up on this and fired off sev­er­al ques­tions on BMS’ earn­ings call, sug­gest­ing the high­est lev­el of pipeline op­ti­mism since CEO Chris Boern­er took over in late 2023.

And though deal­mak­ing will still be a “top pri­or­i­ty,” Boern­er said Bris­tol My­ers could end up be­ing a lit­tle bit more picky on po­ten­tial buy­outs.

“We're in a very strong po­si­tion with the late-stage pipeline — we don't need to chase deals,” Boern­er said. “That said, we're go­ing to con­tin­ue to be look­ing out for op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

Plus, news about Quell Ther­a­peu­tics, Third Arc, BAR­DA and AL­Tx Ther­a­peu­tics:

⛩️ Ei­sai teams with Hen­lius: The Tokyo-based phar­ma will get the Japan­ese com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights to the Shang­hai biotech’s an­ti-PD-1 called ser­plulimab. Hen­lius’ med­i­cine is ap­proved in Chi­na as Han­sizhuang and Het­ron­i­fy in the EU. Ei­sai will pay $75 mil­lion up­front, plus reg­u­la­to­ry biobucks of as much as $80 mil­lion and sales mile­stones of up to $233 mil­lion. — Kyle LaHu­cik

🗽 LB Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals lands $100M: The NYC-based biotech se­cured the pri­vate place­ment from Balyas­ny As­set Man­age­ment, Cali­gan Part­ners, TCGX and oth­ers. The mon­ey will help fund a Phase 2 test of its drug LB-102 as an ad­junc­tive treat­ment for ma­jor de­pres­sive dis­or­der. The med­i­cine is al­so ex­pect­ed to en­ter Phase 3 in schiz­o­phre­nia and re­cent­ly en­tered Phase 2 in bipo­lar de­pres­sion. LB went through a $285 mil­lion IPO last Sep­tem­ber. — Kyle LaHu­cik