Parabilis raises $305 million, eyeing IPO

Parabilis Medicines, formerly FogPharma, has raised $305 million in a Series F round to push its lead corkscrew-shaped peptide cancer drug into late-stage trials, STAT’s Allison DeAngelis writes.

The round was led by RA Capital, Fidelity, and Janus Henderson, with crossover investors like Janus and Cormorant — signaling growing confidence that the a window may reopen for a surge in IPOs this year. The company has deliberately stayed private longer than most peers, but CEO Mathai Mammen acknowledged it will eventually need to go public.

“To ultimately drive the intrinsic value of the company and see it through in the market capitalization, I think we do need to be a public entity,” Mammen told STAT. “We didn't need to do it in 2025, or right now, but eventually we need to…. But, we’ll do it on our terms.”

Weight Loss

Obesity startup launches with a focus on amylin

From my colleague Elaine Chen: A new startup called Alveus Therapeutics launched today with a focus on developing obesity drug candidates, including amylin-targeting therapies. The Philadelphia-based biotech said it raised $160 million in a Series A round led by New Rhein Healthcare Investors, Andera Partners, and Omega Funds.

The company's lead candidate, called ALV-100, activates receptors of the GLP-1 hormone while blocking receptors of the GIP hormone. Alveus is preparing to take the injectable drug, licensed from Chinese company Gmax Biopharm, into Phase 2 testing. Whether GIP receptors should be activated or blocked is a point of debate — Eli Lilly’s Zepbound activates GIP receptors, but Amgen is developing a candidate that block them.

Alveus has also internally developed several amylin-targeting candidates, including an injectable drug, called ALV-200, that it hopes to bring into clinical testing soon, as well as oral small molecule therapies. Drug companies have increasingly gravitated toward the amylin hormone as a target for obesity drugs, with the most prominent candidate being Novo Nordisk’s CagriSema.

status report

What we're expecting at J.P. Morgan this year

As we count down to this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, we at STAT are bracing for a cautiously optimistic biotech reunion.

In a new episode of STATus Report, host Alex Hogan talks with colleagues about investors who are watching closely for long-teased M&A, and signs abound for a thawing IPO market. There’s also a brewing reset in pharma confidence after last year’s political and regulatory whiplash.

Watch here.

Fundraising

EpiBiologics raises $107 million to develop bispecific antibodies against cancer and immune disorders

From my colleague Jonathan Wosen: Bispecific antibodies, Y-shaped immune proteins that can latch onto two different targets, have raised hopes for more effective, targeted cancer therapies, with promising data prompting what some industry veterans have previously called a “gold rush” of investment.

Those funding dollars continued to flow this morning, as EpiBiologics, a Bay Area biotech, announced that it raised $107 million in a Series B round to develop bispecific antibodies as therapies for cancer and immune-mediated disorders.

The San Mateo, Calif., firm plans to move its lead candidate, EPI-326, into an early-stage clinical trial of patients with certain forms of lung or head and neck cancer by the first half of this year. The drug is designed to latch onto Epidermal Growth Factor, a protein that drives the growth of many cancers, and to trigger the molecule’s destruction in tumor cells while sparing healthy cells. The antibody's other target has not yet been disclosed.

glp-1 drugs

GLP-1 pills revive the magic bullet debate

The arrival of an oral version of Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 weight loss drug has reignited medicine’s long-standing love affair with the “magic bullet” pill, opines Thomas Goetz, creator of “Drug Story,” a podcast about the business of disease, and the former executive editor of Wired.

While pills feel easier and less fraught than injections — and more compelling to investors, he writes — the history of blockbuster drugs from statins to benzodiazepines shows that early hype often obscures long-term risks and unintended consequences.

America’s heavy reliance on prescriptions treats symptoms rather than root causes, sidelining lifestyle, behavioral, and systemic interventions that could more sustainably address chronic disease. Yet GLP-1s may be different in one crucial way:

“These drugs are challenging the idea that obesity is a matter of free will and personal responsibility, that it’s ‘cheating’ to take a drug to help,” Goetz writes. “GLP-1s make it clear that our diets and consequent body weight may not just be a matter of choice — there are larger, more systemic failures in our food and medicine.”