Cyteir Therapeutics Raised $133 million

Cyteir Therapeutics, an early-stage oncology startup, raised $133 million on its first day of trading on Friday. The company’s share prices have fallen after an initial rise.The biotech company is trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol CYT.

Cyteir Therapeutics shares were trading at around $17 as of 2 p.m. on Monday, about a 5% decrease from the initial $18 offering. The company priced its shares at the high end of its range, which it had set at $16 to $18.The company sold 7.4 million shares in Friday’s offering, with J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and BofA Securities backing the listing.

Cyteir Therapeutics is still in early stages. It’s lead drug candidate is poised to enter Phase 2 clinical trials in the second half of this year. Cyteir’s method of fighting cancer involves an approach called synthetic lethality that blocks cancer cells’ ability to repair themselves, with its lead drug focusing on hematologic cancers and solid tumors. According to CEO Markus Renschler, the drug has shown early promise in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, among other cancers.In February, Cyteir raised an $80 million Series C round, which it planned to use to launch the Phase 2 trial and double its size from 25 to 50 full-time employees.

Cyteir is the eighth Massachusetts-based biotech to hit public markets this year. Its IPO came exactly one day after Verve Therapeutics’ public debut; that company is now trading at nearly $37 per share, nearly twice the amount it had priced its offering. Prior to that, Werewolf Therapeutics and Akoya Bioscences made their IPOs in April.Several other local biotechs are slated for IPOs this year, including Monte Rosa Therapeutics, which is expected to hit public markets this week, and TScan Therapeutics, which recently filed for a $100 million IPO but has yet to schedule a date.