June 18 (Reuters) – Kardigan’s shares rose 1.6% in their Nasdaq debut on Thursday, after the heart drug developer raised $400 million in an upsized U.S. initial public offering.
The Princeton, New Jersey-based company’s shares opened at $16.25, above its IPO price of $16 per share, after Kardigan sold 25 million shares on Wednesday at the top end of its marketed range of $14 to $16.
The strong market debut underscores renewed investor appetite for biotech companies with advanced clinical programs and promising drug pipelines as improving market conditions reopen the IPO window for the sector.
Kardigan’s debut adds to a string of successful biotech listings this year, following strong first-day performances by autoimmune disease-focused Odyssey Therapeutics, weight-loss drug developer Kailera Therapeutics and proteomics company Alamar Biosciences.
The clinical-stage biotech Kardigan is developing precision medicines for cardiovascular diseases and is advancing three late-stage experimental therapies- danicamtiv, ataciguat and tonlamarsen.
(Reporting by Aditi Tiwari and Prakhar Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)