MapLight shares track up after $251m IPO

Neuropsychiatric disorder specialist MapLight Therapeutics has made its debut on the Nasdaq, raising $251 million and arriving on the scene valued somewhere north of $800 million.

The California company's shares, traded under the MPLT ticker, rose almost 8% after the listing from their starting price of $17, with the total raised swollen by a concurrent private placement with Goldman Sachs that brought in $8 million.

The proceeds will be used to advance MapLight's lead drug candidate ML-007C-MA, a fixed-dose combination of an M1/M4 muscarinic agonist – co-formulated with a peripherally acting anticholinergic drug – that will compete with Bristol Myers Squibb's Cobenfy (xanomeline tartrate/trospium chloride), approved by the FDA last year as a monotherapy for schizophrenia.

ML-007C-MA is being developed for schizophrenia as well as for Alzheimer's disease psychosis, and is running a phase 2 trial for each indication, with results due in the latter half of 2027.

BMS has high hopes for Cobenfy, as it offers the first alternative to the decades-old strategy of using dopamine blockers to treat schizophrenia and avoids side effects with these drugs – such as weight gain, movement disorders (tardive dyskinesia), and sedation – that discourage patients from adhering to treatment.

Sales growth has been a little sluggish, however, at $27 million and $35 million, respectively, in the first and second quarters of this year, and the drug's prospects were dented earlier this year when it failed a clinical trial designed to expand its label to support use as an add-on to standard atypical antipsychotic medications.

MapLight reckons that ML-007C-MA could be differentiated by good tolerability, the potential for once-daily dosing (Cobenfy is taken twice-daily), and excellent penetration into the central nervous system.

In its prospectus for the IPO, MapLight said it intends to spend $120 million of the proceeds on the mid-stage schizophrenia trial (ZEPHYR), another $70 million on the Alzheimer's study (VISTA), and $25 million for an ongoing phase 2 study (IRIS) of 5-HT agonist ML-004 for social communication problems and irritability in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Its preclinical pipeline, which includes GPR52 positive allosteric modulator ML-009 and the M4 antagonist ML-021, has been allocated $40 million of the haul. The two drugs are being developed, respectively, for hyperactivity, impulsivity and agitation-related disorders, and Parkinson's disease.

MapLight's IPO comes during a fairly lean year for biotech IPOs in the US and shortly after LB Pharma – also developing a schizophrenia candidate - raised $285 million in its listing last month.