Maraganore's City Therapeutics raises $200m in Nasdaq IPO at $18 a share

City Therapeutics raised $200 million in its initial public offering on 15 October 2026, selling just over 11.1 million shares at $18 each¹. The RNA interference developer, co-founded by former Alnylam Pharmaceuticals chief executive John Maraganore, sold more shares than it had projected earlier in the week and was due to start trading on the Nasdaq on 16 October under the ticker "CTY"¹.

The deal and the pipeline

Before the listing, City had raised about $239 million in venture funding from investors including Arch Venture Partners, Fidelity Management & Research and Invus¹. The IPO roughly doubles that, to support three medicines that are in or close to clinical testing and earlier work on getting RNAi drugs into tissues beyond the liver¹.

All three lead programmes act on liver targets, but they are aimed at chronic and eye conditions rather than the rare diseases where RNAi has so far found its market¹:

• CITY-FXI targets the clotting protein Factor XI and is intended to prevent clot-related disease with a lower bleeding risk than existing drugs. Phase 1 testing cut Factor XI levels by as much as 85%, and a first Phase 2 trial in people at higher risk of clots after knee replacement is expected next year¹.
• CITY-RBP4, for the genetic eye condition Stargardt disease, silences the gene for a protein that carries vitamin A to the eye. It is due to enter Phase 1 later this year, with results expected in 2027¹.
• A third programme targets anaemia of chronic disease, which the company said affects over five million people in the US, with an early-stage study planned for 2027¹.

City also has partnerships with Bausch + Lomb and Biogen as part of its effort to take RNAi into new tissues and disease areas¹.

What it means for the market

The pricing shows public investors are prepared to fund a pre-Phase 2 platform company at scale when the bet is on extending a proven modality. Eight RNAi medicines have been approved, most for rare diseases and all against genetic targets in the liver¹. City's pitch is broader use in common conditions plus delivery to new tissues, the same direction several younger RNAi companies are taking¹.

The lead asset puts City in a crowded field. Other Factor XI drugs are in development, and Stargardt disease is being pursued by several biotechs with oral drugs, gene therapies and other approaches¹. City intends to test CITY-FXI in several indications, including secondary stroke prevention, atrial fibrillation and cancer-associated thrombosis, which widens the potential market but also the number of competitors it will meet¹.

Caveats

City has no product beyond Phase 1, and its first efficacy data in patients will come from a Phase 2 trial that has not yet started¹. The eye and anaemia programmes are earlier still, with clinical readouts not expected before 2027¹.