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Aspen raises a $140M IPO in pursuit of a cell therapy for Parkinson’s
The San Diego biotechnology startup is one of several firms working on a cutting-edge technique with the potential to slow or even halt the neurodegenerative condition.
Published Oct. 29, 2026
Gwendolyn WuSenior Reporter
Parkinson’s cell therapy developer Aspen Neuroscience on Thursday eveningits initial public offering, raising $140.6million to take its treatment deeper into clinical testing.
Aspen sold roughly 9.4 million shares at $15 each,on the low end of the price range it pitchedand will make its Wall Street debut Friday under the ticker symbol “ASPE.”
Aspen claims its cell therapycould address an unmet need in Parkinson’s, a condition in which the destruction of dopamine-producing brain cells leads to trouble walking, talking and completing everyday tasks. For decades, people with Parkinson's have relied on dopamine-replacement therapies like levodopa to help control symptoms. But these treatments don’t replace lost neurons or “slow continued neuronal degeneration,” Aspen said in its IPO filing.
Aspen’s solution, “sasineprocel,” is a one-time treatment designed to replenish dopamine-making cells. The company harvests cell samples from a patient’s skin and modifies them to become a type of stem cell. Aspen then turns those cells into “precursor cells” that eventually mature into dopamine-producing neurons when they’re re-introduced into a patient. This approach holds the potential to “slow or halt” disease progression, Aspen said.
The company is testingsasineprocelin an open-label Phase 1/2a study of patients with mid-stage or “moderately advanced” Parkinson’s disease.Early trial datasuggested potential improvements in function along with a favorable safety profile. Long-term data from that study are expected in 2028, but Aspen intends to launch a Phase 3 study beforehand, by the end of next year.
A second experimental cell therapy for a group of rare brain disorders called pediatric leukodystrophies will soon enter preclinical studies, according to the biotech.
Aspen is one of a few companies working oncell therapies for Parkinson’s. Bayer subsidiary BlueRock Therapeutics has a therapyin Phase 3 testing. Others includingOryon Cell Therapies,XellSmartandCellular Intelligence— which acquired a treatment from Novo — have prospects in development, too.
Some of those treatments are made from the cells of donors instead of individual patients. Aspen claimed its personalized approach could be safer than these donor-derived therapies, which involve a lengthy course of immunosuppressive drugs after treatment. Some preclinical data has indicated that a patient-specific therapy might also produce longer-lasting effects, the company said.
Most of the companies to go public this year have had experimental drugs in mid-stage testing or later at the time of their offerings. With Aspen’s debut, though, nine biotechs with medicines in Phase 1 development have priced share sales in 2026, too — more than the previous two years combined, according toBioPharma Dive data.
The average IPO haul this year has also been considerably higher than in recent years, with 17 companies raising at least $250 million, data show. But cell and gene therapy makers, which have accounted for only a handful of offerings since 2024, haven’t yet seen that kind of interest. Scribe Therapeutics, the only other genetic medicine developer to go public this year,banked about $129 millionin its August IPO.
Twenty-nine biotechs have now gone public on U.S. stock exchanges in 2026, the most in a single year since 2021.
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Biotech
