Scribe Therapeutics’ one-time epigenetic treatment is designed to slash the adherence burden of chronic cholesterol-lowering therapies while sidestepping the irreversibility of gene editing.
Scribe Therapeutics is testing whether investors will embrace an earlier-stage bet in a market that favors derisked IPO stories. But Scribe’s outlier status goes far beyond the fact that the biotech filed to go public around the same time it was heading into the clinic.
Less than a month since debuting and raising an upsized $150 million, Scribe—the only public company with an epigenetic silencer in the clinic—has seen its stock rise 43% from its first-day price of $21.50, resting at $31.05 by close on Wednesday. In comparison, biotech’s industry stock index, known as the XBI, has risen 12% over the last month.
Beyond bucking the trend of late-stage biotechs with derisked assets debuting, the CRISPR-focused company is “a story that very quickly will be validated one way or the other, meaning they’re going to have a data update early next year,” Jack Bannister, senior managing director of equity capital markets at Leerink Partners, told BioSpace. Leerink served as one of the book-running managers for Scribe’s IPO.
The biotech has designed a single dose of its main asset STX-1150 to lower LDL cholesterol (LDL-C), often known as “bad” cholesterol. The asset leverages epigenetic silencing, as opposed to gene editing, in hopes of significantly lowering the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) without permanently changing the DNA sequence.
STX-1150 targets PCSK9 and is currently entering Phase 1 trials in Australia, with interim results in patients with high LDL-C set to read out in the first half of next year. Beyond a clean safety profile, Leerink analysts hope STX-1150 can reduce LDL-C by 50% or more, which would translate to significantly improved adherence-adjusted efficacy compared to approved drugs such as Amgen’s Repatha, Novartis’ and Alnylam’s Leqvio or Merck’s newly approved Lipfendra, according to an Aug. 18 note.
“We believe a positive readout [for Scribe] would drive a meaningful value inflection,” Leerink wrote. The analysts pointed to Eli Lilly’s $1 billion upfront acquisition of gene editor Verve Therapeutics last year, which came on the heels of Phase 1b safety and LDL-C lowering results among only 14 patients.
“It’s the kind of dataset where investors should know quickly whether the drug’s working or not, and so it could be a material value inflection point right out of the gate,” Bannister said about Scribe, comparing the situation to the many biotechs that start with healthy volunteers or are just looking for safety signals early on. “That’s not Scribe. At Scribe, you should have a pretty good sense early and quickly whether it’s worth something or not.”
Leerink believes STX-1150, which is delivered via lipid nanoparticle, could offer similar efficacy to current PCSK9-targeting injections or daily pills, while also improving convenience. The candidate is also designed to be safer than gene editors since no permanent genetic changes are made.
Scribe also differs from other newly public biotechs in fundraise size. The valuation of the IPO is considerably lower, especially compared to record-breakers Kailera Therapeutics’ $625 million debut and Parabilis Medicines’ subsequent $670 million IPO.
That’s by design, Bannister explained.
“It was important for us to find a price that was attractive to not just existing investors but new investors as well,” he said, adding that they wanted to “price the deal to trade well.”
The strategy seems to be paying off. While Scribe hasn’t been on the market as long as either Kailera or Parabilis, the biotech’s stock has risen more than the other two, with Kailera at a 31.4% loss from its first-day price and Parabilis up 24.5% as of Aug. 18, according to BioSpace’s performance tracker.
“Valuation matters. Companies who have leaned in too hard on value and tried to push at too high of a price haven’t traded as well this year,” Bannister said. “Those who have been much more conservative on price have traded well. It’s not a coincidence, right?”
Leerink believes Scribe will outperform market expectations, forecasting a $37 price target, according to the analyst note.
The California-based biotech was co-created by four CRISPR pioneers, including CEO Benjamin Oakes and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna.
Beyond main asset STX-1150, Scribe has also built a gene editing platform called X-Editor that underpins two potential pipeline candidates: STX-1200 for Lp(a) and STX-1400 for severe hypertriglyceridemia—the other two lipid drivers of ASCVD.
This platform has already attracted deals from two major pharmas, Sanofi and Eli Lilly—something Leerink dubs “impressive external validation.” Both pharma companies invested in Scribe’s IPO as well.
The biotech expects its cash runway to carry it into the first half of 2029.
