Aspen Neuroscience raises $140.6 million in Parkinson’s IPO

By Amara Osei

Aspen Neuroscience raised $140.6 million Thursday evening in an initial public offering that sold roughly 9.4 million shares at $15, the low end of its offering range. The Parkinson’s cell-therapy developer will make its Wall Street debut Friday under the ticker “ASPE.” Aspen said the offering will take sasineprocel deeper into clinical testing.

What is Aspen’s Parkinson’s therapy designed to do?

Aspen says sasineprocel addresses an unmet need in Parkinson’s. The disease destroys dopamine-producing brain cells, leading to trouble walking, talking and completing everyday tasks. For decades, patients have relied on dopamine-replacement therapies such as levodopa to control symptoms, but those treatments don’t replace lost neurons or “slow continued neuronal degeneration,” Aspen said in its IPO filing.

Sasineprocel is a one-time treatment designed to replenish dopamine-making cells. Aspen harvests cell samples from each patient’s skin and modifies them into a type of stem cell. The company then turns those cells into precursor cells that eventually mature into dopamine-producing neurons when reintroduced into the patient.

Aspen said the approach could “slow or halt” disease progression. It is testing sasineprocel in an open-label Phase 1/2a study of patients with mid-stage or moderately advanced Parkinson’s disease. Early trial data suggested potential improvements in function and a favorable safety profile.

What happens after the early trial results?

Long-term data from the Phase 1/2a study are expected in 2028. Aspen intends to launch a Phase 3 study by the end of next year, ahead of those results. A second experimental cell therapy for rare brain disorders called pediatric leukodystrophies will soon enter preclinical studies, Aspen said.

How does Aspen’s approach compare with its competitors?

Aspen is one of a few companies developing cell therapies for Parkinson’s. Bayer subsidiary BlueRock Therapeutics has a therapy in Phase 3 testing. Oryon Cell Therapies, XellSmart and Cellular Intelligence also have candidates in development, and Cellular Intelligence acquired a treatment from Novo.

Some rivals use donor cells rather than cells from individual patients. Aspen said its patient-specific approach could be safer because donor-derived therapies require lengthy immunosuppressive drug courses after treatment. The company cited preclinical data suggesting a patient-specific therapy might produce longer-lasting effects.

What does the 2026 biotech IPO market show?

Most biotech companies that went public this year had experimental drugs in mid-stage testing or later when they priced their offerings. Aspen’s debut brought the number of biotechs with medicines in Phase 1 development that have priced 2026 share sales to nine, according to BioPharma Dive data. That exceeds the combined total for the previous two years.

IPO fundraising has also run considerably higher on average this year than in recent years. Seventeen companies have raised at least $250 million, according to BioPharma Dive data. Cell and gene therapy developers have priced only a handful of offerings since 2024 and have not matched that investor interest.

Scribe Therapeutics, the only other genetic medicine developer to go public this year, banked about $129 million in its August IPO. Bambusa Therapeutics, which develops antibody drugs for immune diseases, also priced a new share sale Thursday.

Including Bambusa and Aspen, 29 biotechs have now gone public on U.S. stock exchanges in 2026, according to BioPharma Dive data. That is the most in a single year since 2021.

Aspen’s next proof points are a Phase 3 launch by the end of next year, a preclinical program for pediatric leukodystrophies and long-term Phase 1/2a data in 2028.