AbCellera Biologics, a biotech company working on antibody treatments for ailments including Covid-19 and is backed by investors including Bill Gates, has raised $483 million from an IPO on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and saw its shares surge from $20 at debut to $58.90 at market close, giving it a market value of $15.7 billion.

AbCellera marked one of the biggest biotech IPOs this year, with positive investor sentiment propelled by its work on a potential treatment for the Covid-19 disease. The Canadian company has developed a monoclonal antibody treatment for mild-to-moderate Covid-19 symptoms that was authorized for use last month by US regulators.

AbCellera is developing its Covid-19 treatment in partnership with the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and has secured an order for 300,000 doses from the US government. Lilly will handle manufacturing and distribution while AbCellera focuses on the development and will make royalties from every dose sold.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, AbCellera, which was founded in 2012, was tackling other diseases such as tuberculosis. In 2016, the company received a $645,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a tuberculosis test and later raised some $115 million in equity funding from investors including Palantir’s Peter Thiel.

AbCellera’s market value of $15.7 billion sums up to over 600x its revenue of $25 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30 for this year. During that period, the company posted a net income of $1.9 million.

AbCellera’s IPO marked it as the biggest Canadian pharmaceuticals IPO on record and the second-largest Canadian public offering this year.

Photo credit: TED Conference, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

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