Aduro Biotech soars 100% on IPO

Aduro Biotech (ADRO) is the latest biotech IPO to soar on its public market debut, as the immunotherapy developer gained over 100%. Aduro boasts impressive backers, a large market opportunity and promising results from its Phase 2a trial for pancreatic cancer.

The last biotech to fly up that high was Spark Therapeutics (ONCE) in January, and the gene therapy company now trades over 230% above its offer price.

With a market cap of $1.2 billion, Aduro is the first billion-dollar health care company to double on its first day in over ten years. The next highest first-day pop for so large a health care company was Accuray's 58% gain on its IPO in 2007. Aduro is the largest of any IPO to pop 100% since Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM) in August 2013.

Billion-dollar biotechs have become more common recently: four have listed in the US in the past year, including Aduro, Cellectis (CLLS), FibroGen (FGEN) and Juno Therapeutics (JUNO). The largest of these - Juno - is held by the Renaissance IPO ETF. Unlike most biotechs, Aduro will have nearly $500 million in cash, thanks to the IPO and a $200 million upfront collaboration payment from Novartis. Both Novartis and Johnson & Johnson bought shares on the offering.

Six other biotechs have popped over 70% on the IPO since 2013. Two have dropped significantly, while the other four continued to soar ever higher. Gene therapies targeting rare diseases and cancer have been among the hottest stocks in the biotech space.