Analysis
TRex Bio priced its initial public offering at $14.00 per share -- the low end of its marketed $14.00-$16.00 range -- selling 8,333,334 shares for gross proceeds of about $116.7 million, according to a company announcement. Shares began trading October 9 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker TRXB, with an expected close date of October 13.
Pulse covered TRex Bio's original S-1 filing on September 21, when the clinical-stage biotech first disclosed plans to go public alongside Retension Pharmaceuticals. What's changed: the company has now completed the deal, pricing at the bottom of its range rather than the midpoint or top, with J.P. Morgan, Evercore ISI, Cantor and Stifel as lead bookrunners and Wedbush PacGrow as bookrunner. Underwriters hold a 30-day option on up to 1.25 million additional shares.
“Underwriters hold a 30-day option on up to 1.25 million additional shares.”
TRex Bio's Deep Biology Platform focuses on tissue Treg (regulatory T-cell) biology, aiming to develop immune-regulating drugs for autoimmune and inflammatory disease. Pricing at the low end of the range, rather than pulling the deal entirely, suggests investors found the story credible but not compelling enough to pay up -- a meaningfully different outcome than Firmus Technologies' outright IPO withdrawal the same week, and a data point worth watching as City Therapeutics and Iambic Therapeutics work through their own roadshows this week.
