September 10, 2025

Who Are The Bulge, Mid-tier and Boutique Investment Banks Involved in Biotech IPOs?

For most biotech C-suite members, differentiating one investment bank from another can be a daunting and confusing task, not least because none shy away from telling you exactly how awesome they are (usually all are “number one” in biotech fundraising, backed up by some carefully mined industry data they will present to you).

The executives who have less trouble navigating Wall Street are, of course, those who previously worked on it, namely former bankers and analysts who made the jump over to industry. Examples at the time of writing include the following three, though there are countless others:

• Brian Lian, CEO of Viking Therapeutics, former analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (now Truist).
• Tim Lugo, CFO of Latigo Biotherapeutics, previously an analyst with William Blair.
• David Parrot, CFO of Scribe Therapeutics, formerly an investment banker at Barclays.

I include the examples above in part to show to the reader just how much of a well-trodden path the move from bank to biotech has become.

Why is understanding banking tiers important?

Well, since four-bank IPO syndicates are the most common, a private biotech will likely need to appoint banks for each of the following positions on its prospectus listed in order of importance:

Top Left: Your lead bank, and the one running your IPO (always a bookrunner). 

Top Right: Your number two bank. Sometimes a co-lead (most of the time also a joint bookrunner).

Bottom Left: Third in the pecking order (sometimes a joint bookrunner with your first and second banks).

Bottom Right: Usually described as an IPO manager (very unlikely to be a bookrunner).

Adding some more color: while bottom right syndicate banks might provide decent post-IPO service, you’re really just “buying” research coverage and an investor healthcare conference invitation at this level of participation in your banking syndicate.

Now, given the above, do you really need to cultivate relationships with 20 banks leading up to your IPO? No, there is no need to court a double-digit number of banks since you will likely only want to target three or four for your syndicate. Moreover, bulge bracket banks will only sit in the top left spot (leading the deal) or top right spot if you also have a bulge bracket sitting at top left (likely making them a co-lead). So, you likely also do not need to cultivate relationships with more than three bulge bracket banks.

Understanding where each bank sits in the pecking order (and how relatively expensive they are) enables you to form sufficient banking relationships while private, so that you have viable options for each of the IPO syndicate slots you need to fill. In practice, my clients have typically choreographed their interactions to have 2 or 3 viable options for each position. 

In creating the following tables, we looked at biotech and pharma IPOs (on both Nasdaq and the NYSE) that raised more than $50 million in gross proceeds between 2022-24. We have ranked banks based on their average economics for deals during this time period and supplemented the data with own IPO experience.

Note: banks appear in each category in alphabetical order, not prominence.

Bulge Bracket Banks

Tier 1
Bank of America	Goldman Sachs	J.P. Morgan	Morgan Stanley

Source: New Street.

• The top four banks – in our view – should surprise no one. Usually, clients are curious about the absence of global household names like Citigroup, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and UBS. Why are they absent? Well, they just don’t have the presence or sector expertise in healthcare to merit inclusion.
• In the period under consideration, the bulge bracket banks listed received mean economics of 35.0-38.3% from deal participation (source: FactSet).
• If biotechs hold a bake off (a beauty parade of pitches from the banks they are considering for their IPO), it’s typical to only do this for the bulge bracket banks you are considering for your Top Left / lead position. And remember – the more banks you bake off, the more you will end up disappointing, so choose your list of finalists wisely. There is no need to waste your time – or theirs.
• All four bulge bracket banks hold annual healthcare investor conferences, with J.P. Morgan’s being the most prestigious and attended.

Jefferies

Tier 1.5

Jefferies

Source: New Street.

• Jefferies sits its own tier. In our view – and the view of many – it’s not quite a bulge bracket bank, but it’s almost there. It’s also not an upper mid-tier bank like a Leerink or a TD Cowen.
• Jefferies is more than capable of leading a biotech IPO, typically sitting in Top Left or Top Right position – and when it did in our dataset, it walked away with average economics of 31% (source: FactSet).
• Jefferies also runs two critical investor conferences for biotechs each year – its New York Healthcare Conference in June, and its London Global Healthcare Conference in November. 

Upper Mid-Tier Banks

Tier 2
Cantor Fitzgerald	Citigroup		Evercore		Leerink (SVB Leerink)
Piper Sandler		Stifel		TD Securities (Cowen)

Source: New Street.

• While both Leerink (SVB Leerink) and TD Securities (TD Cowen/Cowen) co-led a biotech IPO in the period 2022-24, upper mid-tier banks are typically in consideration for the Top Right or Bottom Left position in your syndicate.
• All seven banks have dedicated healthcare investor conferences.
• Upper mid-tier banks received on average between 17.1-29.5% economics on IPOs in our dataset (source: FactSet).

Lower Mid-Tier Banks

Tier 3
Barclays Capital	Guggenheim	William Blair

Source: New Street.

• Lower mid-tier banks in the biotech sector typically sit Bottom Left or Bottom Right.
• Some lower mid-tier banks have dedicated healthcare conferences, while others have growth conferences that include healthcare companies.
• Lower mid-tier banks took home on average between 11.2-14.5% of IPO economics in our sample period (source: FactSet).

Boutique Banks

Tier 4
BMO H. C. Wainwright RBC	Chardan LifeSci Capital Robert W. Baird		Citizens JMP Needham Truist		Credit Suisse Oppenheimer Wedbush
		Wells Fargo

Source: New Street.

• Boutique banks typically sit in the Lower Right spot.
• Some have healthcare-specific investor conferences.
• Boutique banks earned on average 4.0-10.8% of syndicate fees in 2022-24 (source: FactSet).

Missing from IPOs in 2022-24

Other Institutions
BTIG	Berenberg	B. Riley	Canaccord
Capital One	Deutsche Bank	Ladenburg	Lucid Capital
Mizuho	Nomura	Raymond James	Roth
UBS

Source: New Street.

• Note that the banks listed above were absent from 2022-24 biotech IPOs but have traditionally had a presence in past league tables.

Which banks are involved in smaller IPOs?

The above rankings are for biotechs and pharma raising more than $50 million in gross proceeds in 2022-24. What about those biotechs (and there were 33 of them) that raised less than $50 million in gross proceeds?

Well, here the market bifurcates, and the list of financial advisors reads very differently.

Institutions Involved in <$50M Raises

Tier 5
Aegis	AGP	Amerivet	Axiom
Benchmark	Boustead	Brookline	Craft Capital
Dominari	EF Hutton	Freedom Capital	Joseph Gunnar
Kingswood	Laidlaw & Co	Maxim Group	Network 1
Newbridge	Northland	R F Lafferty	Revere
Spartan	Sutter	ThinkEquity	Titan Partners
Univest	Valuable Capital	WallachBeth	Webull
West Park

Source: New Street.

• As previously mentioned, 33 biotech IPOs took place between 2022-24 that raised less than $50 million – representing 46% of the total biotech IPO market of 71 deals. As such, this is a very real subsector.
• A lot of these institutions are retail-focused and only some provide equity coverage.
• Some have investor conferences that biotechs might attend.