Centessa, formed earlier this year through a ten-way merger involving multiple spinouts, has completed a listing in the US.

Centessa Pharmaceutical, a UK-based pharmaceutical conglomerate formed through a ten-way merger involving spinouts from various universities, went public in a $330m initial public offering on Friday.

The company issued 16.5 million American Depositary Shares, representing the same number of ordinary shares, priced at $20 each. The spinout now trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market using the ticker symbol CNTA and its shares closed at $21.75 on the first day of trading.

Founded in October 2020 as a holding group called United Medicines Biopharma, Centessa subsequently acquired multiple biotech developers in January 2021 – though the news only emerged the following month, when the group also rebranded to its current name.

The merger included three spinouts of University of Cambridge – haemophilia treatment developer Apcintex, pulmonary arterial hypertension therapy developer Morphogen-IX and liver and lung diseases drug producer Z-Factor.

The merger also involved University of Toronto Mississauga’s biopharmaceutical spinout Janpix, kidney disease drug developer Palladio Biosciences and antibody discovery startup Capella Bioscience.

PearlRiver Bio, a cancer therapy developer co-founded by researchers at the universities of Cologne and Dortmund, and biopharmaceutical group Sosei Heptares’ narcolepsy treatment spinoff Orexia are also part of the group.

Orexia was additionally combined with Inexia due to the two businesses’ similar focus to form a new entity called Orexia Therapeutics.

Solid tumour treatment developer LockBody and Pega-One, which targets cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and other solid tumour indications, complete the line-up.

Vida Ventures and Janus Henderson Investors co-led a $250m series A round at the time of the launch, with participation from Boxer Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, T Rowe Price Associates, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and Wellington Management Company.

BVF Partners, EcoR1 Capital, Franklin Templeton, Logos Capital, Samsara BioCapital, LifeSci Venture Partners and an unnamed healthcare-focused fund also took part at the time.

Medicxi is Centessa’s founding investor and General Atlantic is also a shareholder, the company revealed in its filing.

A total of $200m of proceeds from the IPO has been allocated to preclinical pipeline development, with the remainder split across phase 1, 2, 2a and 3 trials for various candidates.

Medicxi’s shareholding has been diluted from 24.1% to 19.9%, while Index Ventures now owns 11.5% and General Atlantic now holds 9.4%.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Evercore ISI are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. They have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2.47 million ADSs.

Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the former editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and was the producer and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast until December 2024.