Alumis Just Raised $250M Going Public. Three Months Ago, It Raised $259M.

Think of TYK2 as a power strip. Plug in signals like IL-23 and type I interferon, and you get inflammation. Block the strip selectively, and you calm the immune system without shutting off everything else. That selectivity matters because older drugs in the broader JAK inhibitor class (TYK2's cousins) carry safety baggage: heart risks, blood clots, cancer concerns. ESK-001's pitch is that it hits TYK2 without touching the rest of the family.

The lead target is moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, a skin condition affecting millions. Alumis ran Phase 2 trials showing strong, dose-dependent results: 64% of patients on the highest dose achieved 75% skin clearance at 12 weeks, compared to 0% on placebo. The safety profile looked clean, with no serious treatment-related side effects.

Then came the Phase 3 ONWARD program. Both pivotal trials (ONWARD1 and ONWARD2) met all primary and secondary endpoints. In ONWARD1, 59.9% of treated patients hit 90% skin clearance by Week 16, rising to 68.0% by Week 24; in ONWARD2, the figures were 53.1% and 62.1%, respectively. Complete clearance rates climbed to around 40%. Itch relief showed up as early as Week 2.

Those numbers matter because they put ESK-001 in the conversation with major competitors, and analysts at Raymond James have flagged that envudeucitinib's safety profile may actually give it an edge over rival TYK2 drugs in development.

The Investor Who Wouldn't Stop Writing Checks

Alumis' fundraising timeline reads like a speedrun. Series A in May 2021: $70 million. Series B in January 2022: $200 million. Series C in March 2024: $259 million. Then the IPO in June.

The Series C alone was one of the largest private biotech rounds of its year, co-led by Foresite Capital, Samsara BioCapital, and venBio Partners. Big names like Cormorant, SR One, Lilly Asia Ventures, and HBM Healthcare also piled in. Forge Global pegged the post-money valuation at roughly $703 million.

Three months later, Alumis went public at a valuation north of $900 million. CEO Martin Babler, who previously built and sold Principia Biopharma to Sanofi, clearly isn't shy about raising money when the window is open. And in 2026, that window is very much open.

The 2026 IPO Wave Is Real (and Weird)

Alumis isn't an isolated case. Biotech IPOs in 2026 have already raised about $5 billion across roughly 14 deals through late June.

But the math reveals something unusual. The median IPO size in Q1 2026 was $287.5 million, more than double the early 2025 figure. Kailera Therapeutics shattered records in April with a $625 million debut, surpassing Moderna's $600 million 2018 offering as the largest biotech IPO ever.

Of the first 13 venture-backed biotechs to go public in 2026, 11 raised at least $250 million each. This isn't a broad reopening of the IPO market. It's a velvet rope situation: if you have late-stage data and a well-known investor syndicate, you're in. Everyone else is still waiting outside.

So What's the Play?

Analysts covering Alumis generally rate it a Buy, with price targets ranging from as low as $19 up to $55, with consensus implying roughly 79% upside from recent levels. Oppenheimer recently raised its target to $55.

The bull case is straightforward: envudeucitinib's Phase 3 data looks competitive, the safety story differentiates it, and the company now has a massive cash pile to fund commercialization prep. Alumis later raised an additional $345 million in a follow-on offering (at $17 per share, above the IPO price), which tells you institutional demand sharpened once the initial volatility settled.

The bear case is equally simple. Alumis is pre-revenue. Psoriasis is a crowded market with biologics that already work well. And broken IPOs sometimes stay broken.

But for a company that has raised over $600 million before selling a single pill, the bet is clear: TYK2 inhibition will be big enough to justify all of it. The 2026 IPO window gave Alumis its shot. Now the Phase 3 data has to deliver.

Biogen Spent $5.6B on Apellis. Then It Torched the Science.

Biogen closed its $5.6 billion Apellis acquisition and immediately killed most of the company's research programs, keeping only the two products already making money. It's a pattern that keeps repeating in big pharma M&A, and it says a lot about what acquirers actually value.