Odyssey Raises $279M in Upsized IPO; Seaport Hits Nasdaq

The biopharma IPO market showed signs of life in early 2026, with Odyssey Therapeutics and Seaport Therapeutics both completing public market debuts within weeks of each other. Odyssey's offering closed at $279 million, exceeding its initial target, while Seaport priced at the top of its range before beginning Nasdaq trading.

Odyssey Therapeutics, led by biotech veteran Gary Glick, sold 15.5 million shares at $18 per share on May 8. The company had initially targeted $236.6 million in proceeds, but investor demand pushed the final figure higher. Underwriters received a 30-day option to purchase an additional 2.3 million shares. The stock began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker ODTX.

This was Odyssey's second attempt at going public. The company first filed for an IPO in January 2025, but abandoned the effort in June of that year, citing market conditions that made the offering "not in the best interests of the company." Between the failed attempt and the successful 2026 debut, Odyssey raised $213 million in a Series D round instead.

According to the company's securities filing, approximately $135 million of the IPO proceeds will fund OD-001, a small-molecule scaffolding blocker of the RIPK2 protein currently in Phase 2a and Phase 2b studies for ulcerative colitis. Another $50 million will advance OD-002, an SLC15A4 program, through investigational new drug-enabling activities and into Phase 1/2a development.

Odyssey also closed a concurrent private placement of 1.4 million shares to an affiliate of TPG Life Sciences Innovations, raising an additional $25 million at the IPO price. The company has accumulated $727 million in venture funding since Glick launched it in 2021 with backing from OrbiMed and SR One.

Seaport Therapeutics completed its IPO on April 30, raising $254.9 million from 14 million shares sold at $18 each. The shares began trading on May 1 under the ticker SPTX on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Leerink Partners, Citigroup, and Stifel acted as joint book-running managers.

The company's lead asset, GlyphAllo (SPT-300), is an oral prodrug of the neurosteroid allopregnanolone designed to treat depression and anxiety. Seaport's proprietary Glyph platform protects compounds from first-pass metabolism and boosts oral bioavailability, addressing limitations that have historically plagued similar therapies.

Seaport will also use IPO proceeds to advance GlyphAgo, a prodrug of the antidepressant and anxiolytic agomelatine, through Phase 2a and Phase 2b topline data. The remaining funds will support the rest of the pipeline and corporate activities. Underwriters hold a 30-day option to purchase 2 million additional shares.

Both deals reflect a broader trend in the 2026 biotech IPO market. According to BioSpace's IPO tracker, only eight biopharma companies went public in 2025—the fewest in the industry's post-pandemic era. By contrast, eleven biotech companies have priced IPOs in 2026 so far, with six raising more than $300 million each.

Michael Rachlin, senior managing director at FTI Consulting's Corporate Finance & Restructuring unit, told BioSpace in January that the market is "likely in/entering a more discerning IPO marketplace where drug innovators with proven, later-stage assets/programs will have the necessary support to go public." The data appears to support this view—companies with clinical-stage assets are finding more success than those with purely preclinical programs.

Odyssey's lead program OD-001 targets the innate immune system, which the company says has "fundamental limitations" compared to current therapies that focus on the adaptive response. The approach aims to impact the "core pathology" of inflammatory bowel disease and could help "break the current therapeutic ceiling" in the disease. Odyssey expects to start a combination study with Takeda Pharmaceutical's Entyvio later this year.

Seaport's official press release confirms the pricing details and trading timeline. The registration statement was declared effective with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 30, 2026. The offering closed on May 4, subject to customary closing conditions.

Market performance since debut has been mixed but generally positive. More than half of the biotechs that priced in 2026 are currently worth more than their offering price. One company, Veradermics, has seen its stock price climb more than six-fold since its debut. Simeon George, co-founder of SR One and Odyssey's top shareholder, noted that successful IPO execution validates "that this part of the overall funding cycle is working."

Still, the path to profitability remains long for both companies. Odyssey has five other experimental treatments in its pipeline for conditions such as atopic dermatitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, though none have entered human testing. Seaport's GlyphAllo needs to complete Phase 2b before advancing to late-stage development.

The real question isn't whether these companies can raise money—they clearly can. It's whether their clinical data will justify the valuations investors are assigning them. In biotech, that's always been the harder part (and frankly, the part that burns through cash the fastest).

For now, the 2026 IPO market looks healthier than 2025, but the bar for success has risen. Companies need later-stage assets, proven mechanisms, and clear paths to clinical readouts. Whether that translates to sustained investor appetite beyond the first half of the year remains to be seen.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn