Biotech News: Twitter Isn’t the Only IPO Out There (KPTI, RLYP, TLOG, VTL, XNCR & TNIB)

While the Twitter IPO has been grabing everyone's attention, biotech IPOs continue to dominate both biotech and IPO news with Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: KPTI) going public yesterday and Relypsa (NASDAQ: RLYP), TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TLOG), Vital Therapies (NASDAQ: VTL) and Xencor (NASDAQ: XNCR) filing to go public in the near future (despite the sector producing some ugly charts for the month of October) plus another small cap called TNI BioTech (OTCMKTS: TNIB) has also been producing a steady flow of news:

Karyopharm Therapeutics Debuts. Yesterday, small cap Karyopharm Therapeutics, which is working on a drug that aids the body's natural tumor-suppressing proteins, debuted at the top of its range to raise $109 million in an upsized offering of 6.8 million shares at $16 apiece with shares closing at $16.81. It should be noted that Karyopharm Therapeutics' lead drug candidate (Selinexor) is in early-stage clinical trials and the company lost lost nearly $12.5 million on revenue of $366,000 during the first six months of this year. Biotech IPOs by Region. On an interesting note, Luke Timmerman, the National Biotech Editor of Xconomy, has written a good article tracking biotech or life sciences IPOs by region. By his count, Boston is home to eight of the 45 (18%) of the life sciences IPOs this year (its companies have also raised the most money - about $770 million) plus the New York/northern New Jersey region is also home to eight. San Diego came in third with six IPOs followed by San Francisco with five while only five of the 45 biotech IPOs came from outside the US (Three from Israel and two from Europe). However, the above figures may change as by his account, there are 15 additional biotech companies in line to go public. More Biotechs Set IPO Terms. The small cap biotech space is about to be joined by a few new additions as a couple of biotechs file to go public over the past week or so: Relypsa, which is developing treatments for renal, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, plans to raise $120 million by offering 6.9 million shares at a price range of $16 to $19 for a market value of $502 million at its midpoint; TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, which is developing small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, plans to raise $90 million by offering 6.4 million shares at a price range of $13 to $15 for a market value of $270 million at its midpoint range; Vital Therapies, a clinical-stage biotech developing treatments for acute liver failure, plans to raise $75 million by offering 4.4 million shares at a price range of $16 to $18 for a market value of $277 million at its midpoint range; and Xencor, a clinical-stage biotech developing treatments for severe autoimmune and allergic diseases and cancer, plans to raise $75 million by offering 5 million shares at a price range of $14 to $16 for a market value of $325 million at its midpoint range.   Biotech IPO Lockups Explained. If you are an investor in a new biotech IPO and you are worried about what might happen when the lockup period expires, there is a lengthy article on Forbes about potential strategies VC investors will take to fully exit from their investments. Six Ugly Biotech Charts. Despite the steady stream of biotech IPOs or IPO filings, October was actually the biotech sector's worst month so far this year with June being the only other month this year where the S&P 500 outperformed the biotech sector (or rather the broader market just lost less). With that in mind, The Street recently posted a short article with some rather ugly charts for Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners, Inc (NASDAQ: CPRX), ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: ACAD), Celldex Therapeutics, Inc (NASDAQ: CLDX), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: BCRX) to illustrate just how rough the month was for some biotech stocks (which actually remain winners for the year though):

TNI BioTech Has a Steady Stream of News. Finally, small cap TNI BioTech, which acquires patents, develops treatments, markets and licenses immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, HIV/AIDS and autoimmune diseases, has been producing a steady stream of news. For starters, TNI BioTech recently announced that its subsidiary, TNI BioTech International, Ltd., had inked a distribution agreement with a Nigerian company called AHAR Pharma to market Lodonal™ in Nigeria for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer. TNI BioTech says the deal will generate just over $53,000,000 in gross revenue for the company in 2014 with approximate $21,000,000 in available cash flow to meet TNIB's financial clinical trial commitments plus AHAR Pharma has pre-paid for the API necessary for the soft launch and has committed to purchase a minimum of $1,000,000 worth of capsules between now and January 2014. TNI BioTech has also announced a manufacturing and supply agreement with Laboratorios Ramos for the production of Low Dose Naltrexone ("LDN") and has provided a financing update which noted the receipt of $826,250 as consideration for the exercise of previously-issued warrants and $531,250 for the purchase of common stock under the Private Placement (for an aggregate sum of $1,357,500). TNI BioTech is down 34.7% since the start of the year but its also up 109.4% over the past month.