Generate Biomedicines has raised $400m in one of the largest biotech initial public offerings (IPO) since 2024, signalling renewed investor appetite for drug developers making the public jump.
Generate, an AI drug discovery specialist, has priced 25 million shares at $16 each. The $400m could be bolstered by a further $60m if underwriters exercise their option to buy an additional 3.75 million shares at the same price.
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Generate’s stock will hit the Nasdaq Global Select Market trading boards on 27 February under the ticker symbol “GENB.” The offering is expected to close on 2 March.
At the core of the US biotech’s business is its drug discovery platform, which integrates machine learning, high-throughput experimentation, and structural determination at scale to enable programmable biology.
Generate, which was founded in 2018, has already secured nearly $700m in equity financing before the IPO. Soon to be armed with a sizeable investment, the biotech has made plans on where to use the funds, according to an S-1 document.
Around $300m will be used to advance its lead drug, GB-0895, through a pair of Phase III trials (NCT07276724 and NCT07359846) in severe asthma. Generate is eying GB-0895 as a market competitor to AstraZeneca’s Tezspire (tezepelumab) – the biotech claims its candidate has a twenty-fold improvement over the big pharma’s product in binding affinity. Approximately $100m will go to completing an ongoing Phase Ib clinical trial and further clinical development of GB-0895 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) treatment. The rest of the funds will be used for various R&D activities and advancing other pipeline candidates.
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By GlobalDataThe company’s technology has already attracted the interest of big pharma in recent years. In 2022, Amgen started working with Generate to develop five initial programmes, with the potential for five more at a later state, in a deal worth up to $1.9bn. Novartis then came on board too, inking a separate deal worth more than $1bn to develop protein therapeutics.
The hefty raise means Generate is on course for one of the largest biotech listings in recent times. Before 2026, the largest IPO from a pure-play biotech came from CG Oncology, generating $380m in January 2024. LB Pharmaceuticals banked the largest in 2025 with a $285m raise.
Until Generate eclipsed it, Eikon Therapeutics held the largest IPO in 2026 with a $381m raise in February. Generate’s listing also comes amid a flurry of IPO activity that could signal renewed investor appetite in companies at the forefront of drug innovation. Aktis Oncology kickstarted the IPO cycle this year with a $318m offering in January. SpyGlass Pharma and AgomAb Therapeutics both launched on Nasdaq in early February, raising a combined $350m.
