Good day. Investors crowned Parabilis Medicines with the largest biotech initial public offering on record—then bid its shares up some 58% on their first day of trading Wednesday.

Parabilis’s $670 million Nasdaq debut topped the previous biotech record from Kailera Therapeutics, an obesity-drug developer that staged a $625 million IPO in April.

Oncology-focused Parabilis sold 33.5 million shares, exceeding an earlier plan to sell 25 million, and went public at $20 each—above their previously expected range of $17 to $19. The shares closed at $31.60 Wednesday.

Biotechs continue to shake off last year’s IPO slump. And a backlog of strong companies is capitalizing on the IPO market’s new impetus, said Ben Zercher, senior research analyst for biotech and pharma at PitchBook. Many have advanced drug candidates and need fresh cash to move forward.

“There’s a lot of opportunity here and that requires a lot of capital for the development,” he said. “People are making bolder moves.”

Read the full story here.

And now on to the news...

AI healthcare model. Nvidia is joining with Abridge, maker of an AI note-taking app for doctors, to train an artificial intelligence model tailored for healthcare as it continues its push into the sector. The AI model is designed for clinical conversations, the companies said, and will be used exclusively within Abridge’s platform to improve tasks like clinical decision support and documentation. Nvidia is an investor in Abridge.

• The move comes as tech giants and AI labs alike have been ramping up their investments in the healthcare and AI industry.
   
• Last week, Microsoft announced a collaboration with Mayo Clinic to build a healthcare-focused AI model that taps Mayo’s clinical health data.
   
• Both OpenAI and Anthropic have their own digital health offerings targeted at consumers and healthcare providers.

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to buy biotechnology company Firefly Bio for $1 billion in cash in a deal that bolsters the drugmaker’s oncology pipeline. J&J on Monday said Firefly is developing its proprietary Firelink degrader antibody conjugate platform, for KRAS-driven cancers, which have limited treatment options with survival measured in months. Mutations of the KRAS gene have long been considered undruggable because the gene’s structure lacks the deep binding pockets most drugs need.

Not long ago, it would have been hard to imagine GSK doing one of the industry’s biggest deals of 2026. But the company’s new chief executive, Luke Miels, is taking a starkly different approach from his predecessor, striking a $10.6 billion deal for cancer drugmaker Nuvalent on Tuesday, in an attempt to turn the drugmaker into a more formidable competitor in an industry where it had started to fall behind.

People

Apnimed, a startup developing novel oral therapies that address the neurobiology of sleep-related breathing diseases, appointed Kevin Lind as chief executive officer. He succeeds company founder Lawrence "Larry" G. Miller, who will transition to vice chair of the board.

Tumor visualization provider Vergent Bioscience appointed Adam Gridley as president and chief executive officer. He succeeds John Santini, who will transition to chief technology officer.

ProVerum, which is focused on treating benign prostatic hyperplasia, appointed Jesse Litwak as chief financial officer. He previously spent 16 years at Medtronic.

Syntis Bio, a developer of oral therapies that harness the biology of the small intestine to treat obesity, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, named Matthew Dallas as chief financial officer. He most recently served as CFO of Pulmocide.

CatalYm, which is developing an immune therapy for solid tumors, named Peter Garcia as chief financial officer. He was most recently CFO of Bluejay Therapeutics.

Exits

Star Therapeutics is selling its Vega Therapeutics unit, which is developing treatments for bleeding disorders, to Incyte for up to $2 billion. The deal includes an initial $1.25 billion in cash and up to $750 million in additional payments upon the achievement of sales milestones.

Health and insurance benefits platform Betterfly acquired employee compensation and benefits platform Minu. Both companies previously raised venture-capital funding.

Beren Therapeutics, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-headquartered biotechnology startup developing a treatment for a type of Niemann-Pick disease, raised $300 million in combined financing, including $135 million in equity from Founders Fund and several others.

Ethyreal Bio, a Cambridge, Mass.-headquartered startup developing precision therapies for thyroid diseases, emerged from stealth with $101 million in funding, including a Series A round co-led by Atlas Venture and Medicxi Ventures.

GT Medical Technologies, a Tempe, Ariz.-based medical device company focused on improving the lives of patients with brain tumors, closed a $100 million Series E round. Viking Global Investors led the investment, which included participation from MVM Partners, Gilde Healthcare, Evidity Health Capital, Medical Technology Venture Partners and FemHealth Ventures.

City Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup building a pipeline of RNA interference therapeutics, completed a $99.5 million Series B round from investors including Viking Global Investors, Sofinnova Investments, Casdin Capital, NYBC Ventures and ARCH Venture Partners.

Rylo, a communication platform for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, picked up $85 million in new funding from General Catalyst and others. The company has offices in New York and Israel.

Stepful, a New York-based training platform for healthcare careers, raised $55 million in Series C funding. Oak HC/FT led the round, which saw additional support from Foresite Capital, Hearst Ventures, Citi Impact Fund, SemperVirens and others.

FesariusTherapeutics, a New York-headquartered dermal regeneration technology developer, secured $20 million in Series A funding. Jefferson Life Sciences led the round, which included contributions from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC and Empire State Development's New York Ventures.

Uncovr, a surgical AI startup helping hospitals automate documentation and coding, was seeded with a $7 million investment led by Index Ventures. The company is headquartered in New York and Paris.

• 20-Somethings Are Getting Double Mastectomies as Cancer Rates Rise in Young Adults

• Roche Licenses Nurix Therapeutics Blood-Cancer Drug for Up to $2.3 Billion

• Sigma Healthcare in Preliminary Talks to Buy U.K.’s Boots

• Sanofi to Stop Late-Stage Study of Immune-Disorder Drug

• Doctors Should Do More Screening for Excess Body Fat and Its Health Risks

• Your Weight-Loss Drugs Are Next on the Corporate Chopping Block

• Diabetes association leader apologizes for expulsion of members, pledges to rebuild trust (STAT) 
   
• Have a thorny medical question? Your doctor may be using AI for that. (New York Times)
   
• Utah’s measles outbreak takes a toll (KFF Health News)
   
• The 'steroid olympics' were a circus, and a window into our culture (MIT Technology Review)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier, Zachary Cole and Brian Gormley. 

Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, and Brian Gormley.

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