IPO News: Monte Rosa Therapeutics will go public this week, here are a few things to know

Biotechnology company Monte Rosa Therapeutics is slated to go public this week. In a pandemic-ridden world, this industry is expanding at a healthy pace. The global biotechnology market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.83% over the next seven years to reach $2.44 trillion by 2028, based on data from Grand View Research. 

IPO details

Monte Rosa Therapeutics will begin trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol GLUE. The company will offer 9.8 million shares at a price of between $17 and $19. The proposed offering amount is $175.5 million. The group of underwriters managing the IPO will be led by JP Morgan and Cowen.

An intro to Monte Rosa

Monte Rosa develops molecular glues that help degrade undruggable proteins that cause illnesses. The company has developed a protein degradation platform called QuEEN and molecular glue degrader (MGD) product candidates that use the body’s natural methods to eliminate disease-causing proteins.

Monte Rosa believes its portfolio of small molecule precision medicines will give it an edge over the existing treatment approaches as it allows the targeting of proteins that were previously not sufficiently druggable. The company’s product portfolio gives it treatment opportunities for indications such as inflammation, neurological and genetic diseases.

Monte Rosa is developing an oral MGD for the treatment of cancers overexpressing any of the Myc family genes, which are some of the most frequently mutated oncogenes in cancers. Around 10% of non-small cell lung cancer and over 50% of small cell lung cancer overexpress one of these genes.

Monte Rosa was founded in 2019 and has a market cap of $765.7 million. The company’s programs are still in the preclinical stages of drug discovery. Therefore it has not generated any revenues to date from drug sales and it is yet to achieve profitability.

Recent developments

In March, Monte Rosa closed a Series C financing for $95 million. The proceeds were intended to advance the company’s lead development candidate into the clinic, expedite the growth of its pipeline and boost its protein degradation platform. The financing was led by Avoro Capital Advisors along with investors such as Fidelity Management & Research Company and BlackRock.

Monte Rosa also strengthened its leadership team with the appointments of Sharon Townson as Chief Technology Officer and Filip Janku as Chief Medical Officer.

Click here to read more on IPOs