August 20, 2025

Should Biotechs List on Nasdaq or the NYSE?

Once a biotech makes the decision to go public, the company faces a number of key choices:

• Which banks should I include in my IPO syndicate?
• Which accounting firm should conduct our audit?
• Which law firm should I retain to advise on our process?
• Which IR consultant should I work with?

You might think choosing where to list your company’s stock would also be an important consideration, but the punchline is that U.S. investors, analysts and bankers are entirely indifferent as to whether you pick Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Non-U.S. biotechs might consider listing on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), Israel’s Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), or the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) – depending on their domicile – but each of these (and indeed all other foreign exchanges) pale in comparison to a U.S. listing, where the financial ecosystem for biotechs is materially bigger and more entrenched. So, much like U.S.-based biotechs, their choice is also a binary one: Nasdaq or the NYSE.

Prestige

Whether you list on Nasdaq or the NYSE, you will be among illustrious company. Both trade thousands of stocks, featuring many of the world’s largest publicly traded companies, including some with market capitalizations in excess of $1 trillion, at the time of writing.

Prestigious U.S. – Listed Public Companies

Nasdaq- listed	NYSE-listed
NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet	Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Berkshire Hathaway, J.P. Morgan Chase, Walmart, Eli Lilly

Source: Nasdaq, NYSE

Liquidity

The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) began trading on February 8, 1971, as the world’s first electronic stock market, while the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) dates back to 1792 and continues to conduct trading through a network of members, hosted on the floor of its exchange (although notably it has recently been transitioning towards more electronic trading).  Despite what you may hear from either platform, in practice, there is no material difference – and thus apparent preference – among biotech investors when it comes to the liquidity of their investments.

Listing costs and subsidized IPO investor relations packages

While a biotech may think it can negotiate with Nasdaq or the NYSE to obtain a better deal – e.g. reduced listing fees or a better subsidized IPO IR package – in reality this is not possible. That’s because both (listing fees and subsidized packages) are regulated by, and reached in periodic agreement with, the SEC, and constitute disclosable information.

So, what is the tiebreaker?

In the end, when choosing between NYSE and Nasdaq, biotechs tend to look at what their peer group has done, and here biotechs have overwhelmingly voted for Nasdaq listings over the past decade.

While the trend probably started with Nasdaq’s initial focus on technology companies, it has evolved as the default for biotechs not wanting to look atypical in their sector (at the most important point in their life to date).

1. U.S. Biotech/Pharma IPOs 2015-2024

Year	# IPOs on Nasdaq	Nasdaq Market Share	# IPOs on NYSE	NYSE Market Share	Total # U.S. Biotech IPOs
2015	45	98%	1	2%	46
2016	27	90%	3	10%	30
2017	41	95%	2	5%	43
2018	70	99%	1	1%	71
2019	53	100%	0	0%	53
2020	92	98%	2	2%	94
2021	122	99%	1	1%	123
2022	23	96%	1	4%	24
2023	19	95%	1	5%	20
2024	23	85%	4	15%	27
Total:	515	97%	16	3%	531

Source: FactSet, 2015-2024, excluding Jaguar Animal Health, Inc., Arcturus Therapeutics Ltd. (reverse merger), Elanco Animal Health, Inc., and Oaktree Acquisition Corp. II (SPAC).

Looking first at all biotech/pharma IPOs from 2015-2024 (regardless of the amount raised in gross proceeds), Nasdaq was chosen by 97% of companies. That market share does not change when we bifurcate the market into greater than $50 million and less than $50 million deals.

2. U.S. Biotech/Pharma IPOs 2015-2024 – Gross Proceeds > $50 million

Year	# IPOs on Nasdaq	Nasdaq Market Share	# IPOs on NYSE	NYSE Market Share	Total
2015	35	97%	1	3%	36
2016	20	87%	3	13%	23
2017	33	94%	2	6%	35
2018	54	98%	1	2%	55
2019	44	100%	0	0%	44
2020	73	97%	2	3%	75
2021	84	99%	1	1%	85
2022	10	100%	0	0%	10
2023	10	100%	0	0%	10
2024	17	94%	1	6%	18
Total:	380	97%	11	3%	391

Source: FactSet. Subset of Table 1.

When one looks at biotech/pharma IPOs raising gross proceeds of more than $50 million from 2015-2024, Nasdaq has a 97% market share.

3. U.S. Biotech/Pharma IPOs 2015-2024 – Gross Proceeds < $50 million

Year	# IPOs on Nasdaq	Nasdaq Market Share	# IPOs on NYSE	NYSE Market Share	Total
2015	10	100%	0	0%	10
2016	7	100%	0	0%	7
2017	8	100%	0	0%	8
2018	16	100%	0	0%	16
2019	9	100%	0	0%	9
2020	19	100%	0	0%	19
2021	38	100%	0	0%	38
2022	13	93%	1	7%	14
2023	9	90%	1	10%	10
2024	6	67%	3	33%	9
Total:	135	96%	5	4%	140

Source: FactSet. Subset of Table 1.

Finally, when one looks at biotech/pharma IPOs raising gross proceeds of less than $50 million from 2015-2024, Nasdaq had a 96% market share.

Conclusion

When asked by prospective public biotech company CEOs and CFOs whether they should list on Nasdaq or the NYSE, I tell them, “In practice, it doesn’t matter… but in reality ‘everyone’ lists on Nasdaq.”