Eli Lilly has scored an exit after the inflammatory disease drug developer, which is now valued at about $1bn, went public.

Connect Biopharma, a China-based inflammatory disease drug developer backed by pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, floated on the Nasdaq Global Market in a $191m initial public offering on Friday.

The company priced almost 11.3 million American depositary shares at $17 per share. They opened at $19.55 and closed at $18.49 at the end of its first day of trading, giving Connect Bio a market capitalisation of roughly $1bn.

Connect Bio is using research based on the T Cell receptor protein…