Equillium (EQ) began trading on the Nasdaq on 12 October 2018

Equillium, Inc., a biotechnology company, develops products for autoimmune and inflammatory, or immuno-inflammatory disorders. The company was formerly known as Attenuate Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. and changed its name to Equillium, Inc. in May 2017.

• Founded in 2017.
• Headquartered in San Diego, California.
• Full Time Employees: 7
• https://equilliumbio.com

Equillium opened for trade at $14.35 after pricing 4.7M share IPO at $14/share

Equillium chairman and CEO Dan Bradbury previously headed another La Jolla drug maker, the diabetes drug manufacturer Amylin Pharmaceuticals, which was founded in 1987.

Bradbury, who worked at Amylin for 18 years, was CEO from 2007 to 2012, when the company was jointly acquired for $5.3 billion, plus $1.7 billion in Amylin debt, by New York-based pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN).

The acquisition followed the regulatory approval of Amylin’s drug Bydureon, a once-per-week diabetes shot.

Bristol later sold its stake in Amylin to AstraZeneca, shuttered the San Diego company’s operations and elsewhere, and folded its personnel into its other operations.

Prior to his time at Amylin, Bradbury spent 10 years with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) predecessor SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals in marketing and sales.

Equillium said it intends to use about $50 million in IPO proceeds to fund research and development of EQ001, specifically a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial for the acute form of GVHD in early 2019, and a Phase 2 clinical trial for the chronic version of the disease and a proof-of-concept clinical trial for the treatment of severe asthma in the first half of 2019.