AstraZeneca spinoff Viela Bio has gone public in an offering that involved existing backers buying some $70m worth of stock, and its share price has since risen 21.7%.

US-based autoimmune and severe inflammatory disease drug developer Viela Bio has floated in a $150m initial public offering after being spun off by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in 2018.

The offering consisted of 7.9 million shares issued on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Thursday. The company increased the number of shares from 7.5 million but priced them at $19.00 each, at the bottom of the IPO’s $19 to $21 range.

Viela is developing treatments for autoimmune and severe inflammatory…

Robert Lavine

Robert Lavine is special features editor for Global Venturing.