It’s been a rough year for IPOs. So far, just 110 companies have gone public, a 29.9 percent decline from the same period last year, according to Renaissance Capital.

One of the few bright spots has been the health care industry, which accounts for 27 of the IPOs. Most are fledgling biopharma and life sciences companies. Of the 27, 16 are trading above their offering prices, with most up by double or even triple digits. 

Perhaps more significantly, seven of the nine most recent biopharma companies to go public are in the black, all but one up by a double-digit percentage gain.

So it’s not surprising that in the past week or so, four companies have either priced fresh offerings or filed initial plans to go public. And nearly a dozen hedge funds are investors in these companies.

First up was ADARx Pharmaceuticals, which is developing next-generation small interfering RNA therapeutics for a broad range of diseases. On Thursday, it sold 26.3 million shares at $17 apiece, the high end of its anticipated range of $15 to $17, raising more than $447 million. It had originally planned to offer 21.9 million shares.

Under the offering arrangement, AbbVie, in a concurrent private placement, agreed to purchase an amount of stock that would result in the drug giant owning roughly 4.9 percent of the outstanding shares, at a price equal to the public offering price. It now owns 5.2 million shares, up from 5 million before the offering.

No hedge fund owned at least 5 percent of the shares before the IPO. However, hedge fund firms Cormorant Asset Management, Marshall Wace, and Redmile Group invested in the August 2023 $200 million Series C financing. The stock closed Friday at $19.54, up 14.9 percent from its IPO price.

Last week, City Therapeutics filed plans to go public. The company describes itself as a clinical-stage biotech company developing RNA interference therapeutics designed to silence disease-relevant proteins. Its current pipeline is focused on significant unmet medical needs, “where we believe disease biology supports RNAi-mediated knockdown as a differentiated approach compared to other modalities.”

City Therapeutics has not yet identified the number of shares it wants to sell or an anticipated price range. Tiger Cub Viking Global Investors owns 5.4 percent of the shares, consisting of just over 1.29 million shares of common stock issuable upon the conversion of Series B convertible preferred stock held by Viking Global Opportunities Illiquid Investments Sub-Master and 553,675 shares held by Viking Global Opportunities Vintage IV. Other hedge funds invested in one or more previous financings but don’t own at least 5 percent of City’s shares, including Rock Springs Capital, Slate Path Capital, and Casdin Capital.

TRex Bio has also filed plans to go public. It describes itself as a clinical-stage biotech company focused on tissue Treg biology and the development of immunoregulatory medicines to restore immune balance and promote tissue repair in patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It has not said how many shares it wants to sell or provided an anticipated price range.

Janus Henderson Biotech Innovation Master Fund is listed in the regulatory filing as the only 5 percent owner among hedge funds. It bought about $15 million of Series B preferred stock in November 2024 and January 2026. Balyasny Asset Management and Affinity Asset Advisors also participated in the January 2026 fundraise.

Meanwhile, Institutional Investor previously reported that Iambic Therapeutics, a life sciences company using an AI-driven platform to develop medicines, filed plans to go public. The venture capital arm of Tiger Cub Coatue Management and Nvidia are among the 5 percent owners. Other hedge fund investors include Millennium Management, Perceptive Advisors, and Two Sigma.