Scribe aims for $96M IPO to fund clinical push for lipid-lowering genetic meds

Biotech Scribe aims for $96M IPO to fund clinical push for lipid-lowering genetic meds By James Waldron Jul 20, 2026 9:48am Scribe Therapeutics IPO biotech IPO epigenetics Scribe Therapeutics has put its IPO plans down on paper, showing the genetic medicine company hopes to raise $96 million through its public listing. The Bay Area biotech already disclosed earlier this month that it hopes to list on the Nasdaq, but the company revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this morning that it plans to sell 7.1 million shares priced between $13 and $15 apiece. Assuming the final price falls in the middle of that range, Scribe expects to bring in $96.2 million, rising to $110.2 million if underwriters fully exercise their option to buy an additional 1 million shares at the same price. Scribe emerged in 2020 with $20 million, a Biogen partnership and the backing of Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., the CRISPR pioneer who won a Nobel Prize the very next day. Benjamin Oakes, Ph.D.—now Scribe’s co-founder and CEO—joined Doudna’s lab to engineer new CRISPR molecules, eventually starting his own lab at the University of California, Berkeley, before transitioning his research into the startup Scribe. According to this morning’s filing, the company expects to spend $30 million to $35 million of the IPO proceeds on an ongoing phase 1 study of its lead program, STX-1150. Scribe hopes the gene silencer will be able to shut down the PCSK9 gene, a known cardiovascular target that is inhibited by approved cholesterol-lowering medicines such as Amgen’s Repatha and Novartis’ Leqvio. The company recently launched a first-in-human study of STX-1150 in Australia in up to 64 adults with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Topline data showing whether the candidate can lower LDL-C are expected in the first half of 2027. Oakes told Fierce in November 2025 that he thinks of STX-1150 as the “end state” of RNA interference-style therapies, which include Leqvio. While Leqvio is taken every six months, the Scribe CEO holds out hope that his company’s candidate could require a booster once every decade or two. Another $15 million to $20 million of the proceeds has been earmarked to take the APOC3-targeting therapy STX-1400 into the clinic and through initial readouts. A similar amount is expected to be needed for another preclinical asset dubbed STX-1200, which targets the LPA gene. Both STX-1400 and STX-1200 are being lined up for ASCVD. On top of that, Scribe suggested that $20 million to $25 million will be needed to advance the rest of its pipeline, including its partnered programs, as well as “further development of next-generation gene editing technologies and assets.” Those partners include big names like Eli Lilly and Sanofi. In fact, Sanofi—which penned a $1.5 billion biobucks research pact with Scribe back in 2023—has agreed to purchase around $7.5 million of Scribe’s stock in a concurrent private placement, the biotech confirmed. Meanwhile, Lilly has expressed interest in buying stock during the IPO, Scribe said. Scribe is just the latest in a growing number of biotechs lining up to list on the Nasdaq, alongside the likes of Braveheart Bio, BlossomHill Therapeutics and Latigo Biotherapeutics. The warm market reception for biotech IPOs this year has already resulted in record-breaking listings from Kailera Therapeutics and Parabilis Medicines. Scribe Therapeutics IPO biotech IPO epigenetics Biotech