Entrada Breaks Three-Month Drought for Rare Disease IPOs with $182 Million Upsized Offering

Marie Daghlian

Entrada’s IPO, the 21^st for a rare disease focused therapeutics company in 2021, broke a 3-month drought of these offerings, and brought the total raised by rare disease focused biotechs to $4 billion so far in 2021.

Entrada priced 9.1 million shares of common stock at $20.00 per share, the midpoint of its proposed range of $19 to $21 per share. In addition, the underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.4 million shares of common stock at the initial public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The shares will trade on The Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “TRDA”.

Entrada uses its proprietary Endosomal Escape Vehicle (EEV) platform to develop intracellular biologics that it says have the potential to alter the treatment landscape for patients suffering from devastating diseases by successfully getting at disease targets inside the cell that are normally inaccessible and undruggable by large molecules and indirectly or non-specifically addressed by small molecules.

The company says its EEV platform harnesses the inherent endocytic mechanism of cells, enabling higher intracellular target engagement, lower drug concentrations, and reduced or minimal toxicity compared to alternative approaches. The EEV platform also solves a fundamental problem related to intracellular target engagement, which is independent of cellular uptake – the efficient escape from the early endosome. A very low level of early endosomal escape is one of the major hindrances that must be overcome to develop effective intracellular biologics. Without this early escape, the drug is either released from the late endosome where it has already undergone partial degradation or is processed through the lysosome and degraded.

Proceeds from the IPO will be used to advance Entrada’s growing pipeline of intracellular oligonucleotide, antibody, and enzyme-based therapeutics to the clinic, which includes several oligonucleotide programs for the treatment of multiple neuromuscular diseases, led by Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In addition, Entrada is also applying its EEV platform to expand beyond neuromuscular diseases into additional therapeutic areas.