Aspen Neuroscience, a San Diego cell therapy company, set terms on October 26 to sell nearly 9.4 million shares at $15 to $17 each, raising $150 million gross and about $134.5 million net at the $16 midpoint, for a fully diluted market value of about $494 million. Its lead candidate, sasineprocel, is a single dose autologous cell therapy made from a patient’s own skin biopsy, designed to replace the dopaminergic neurons lost in Parkinson’s disease. Fifteen patients had been dosed in an open label Phase 1/2a trial as of August 18, the therapy holds regenerative medicine advanced therapy and fast track designations, and the company expects to dose patients in a Phase 3 trial in the second half of 2027. Aspen, founded in 2018, will list as ASPE, with Leerink Partners, Piper Sandler, Stifel, UBS and Oppenheimer as joint bookrunners. It lost $66.84 million in the twelve months to June 30, 2026 on no product revenue.
Bambusa Therapeutics, a Boston company founded in 2024, set near identical terms the same morning: about 9.4 million shares at $15 to $17, $150 million gross, and a fully diluted value of about $837 million at the midpoint, roughly 70 percent above Aspen’s despite its younger age. Bambusa develops long acting bispecific antibodies for immunology and inflammation, licensed from BioNTech’s Chinese subsidiary. Its lead asset BBT001, targeting IL-4R alpha and IL-31, is aimed at atopic dermatitis and chronic spontaneous urticaria, with a Phase 2b dose ranging study due to start by the end of 2026, and BBT002 targets respiratory indications. BofA Securities, Evercore ISI, UBS and Cantor are joint bookrunners for the BBTX listing.
The pairing is the story. A week after Lycia Therapeutics’ upsized $318 million listing, two more clinical stage companies are testing the window at the same price range in the same week, one selling a manufacturing heavy cell therapy years from pivotal data and the other selling platform bispecifics barely two years from founding. Pricing this week will show which kind of risk the window currently pays for. The gastric cancer ADC comparison in the same Endpoints News roundup, AstraZeneca against Takeda, restates ESMO data covered in this site’s October 24 to 26 stories and adds no new trial result, so it is not rewritten here.