Biotech IR Blog by Our CEO and Founder, Laurence Watts.
March 12, 2025
How Do Biotechs Choose Their Stock Exchange Tickers, Why Are Most Biotech Tickers Four Letters Long, and How Far Ahead of an IPO Should Tickers Be Reserved?
To make stock trading easier, every stock listed on an exchange is given a ticker (sometimes referred to as a ticker symbol or stock symbol). A ticker is a unique combination of (typically) letters that acts as shorthand to identify the underlying equity issuer. Edward Calahan is credited with inventing the ticker in 1867.
Stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ have tickers with four or fewer letters.
There is no qualitative difference between companies with one-, two-, three,- or four-letter tickers, but the scarcity of shorter tickers tends to mean that older and bigger companies have them.
Public Companies with Single Letter Tickers
| Company | Ticker |
| AT&T Inc. | T |
| Citigroup Inc. | C |
| Ford Motor Co. | F |
| Visa Inc. | V |
Source: FactSet
From the table above you can see that AT&T, Citigroup, Ford, and Visa all have single letter tickers. Their respective IPOs were in 1901, 1968, 1956, and 2008, and they have market capitalizations ranging from $38-703 billion at the time of writing.
Since each of the four companies just mentioned are listed on the NYSE, you will often see their tickers abbreviated with their exchange prefix e.g. NYSE: T, NYSE: C, NYSE: F, and NYSE: V. These prefixed tickers are typically used in each respective company’s press releases and SEC filings.
Interestingly, the only NASDAQ-listed company currently with a single letter ticker is Zillow, whose prefixed ticker is NASDAQ: Z.
Importantly, since no NYSE- or NASDAQ-listed company can share the same ticker, when trading stocks, all you need to know is the ticker itself and not the exchange the stock is listed on.
The Need for Longer Tickers
Clearly with just single-letter tickers to identify issuers, the number of publicly listed companies would be capped at twenty-six (or the number of letters in the Latin-script alphabet). Allowing one- and two-letter tickers increases that number to 702 (26+676).
But by the end of 2023 however, there were 2,272 companies listed on the NYSE and 3,432 on NASDAQ – making 5,704 listed companies in total. As such, markets need two-, three- and four-letter tickers.
Again, note that there is no correlation between the number of letters in a ticker and the size or quality of the listed company. Whether you have a two-, three,- or four-letter ticker, you will be in very good company as the table below shows.
Prominent Public Companies with Two-, Three-, and Four-Letter Tickers
| Company | Ticker |
| Coca Cola Co. | KO |
| HP Inc. | HPQ |
| Target Corporation | TGT |
| Exxon Mobil Corp. | XOM |
| Apple Inc | AAPL |
| Alphabet Inc. Class C | GOOG |
| Microsoft Corp. | MSFT |
| Intel Corp. | INTC |
Source: FactSet
Modern Biotech Ticker Conventions
Choosing a ticker is often a matter of which tickers haven’t already been taken or reserved. Biotechs planning an IPO will frequently find that their first choice isn’t available, in which case it’s good to consider alternatives in advance. Let’s explore the most popular naming conventions for biotech tickers, based on the IPO cohorts of 2022-2024.
Between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2024, there were 38 biotech/pharma IPOs each raising gross proceeds of $50 million or more on the NASDAQ and the NYSE combined.
| Year | Tickers of Biotech/Pharma IPOs (n=38) |
| 2022 | CINC, VIGL, AMLX, ACLX, ANTX, HLVX, PEPG, THRD, PRME, ACRV. |
| 2023 | GPCR, MLYS, SLRN, APGE, SGMT, TSBX, RYZB, NMRA, LXEO, CRGX. |
| 2024 | AVBP, CGON, GUTS, ANRO, KYTX, MGX, BOLD, CTNM, RAPP, ALMS, ARTV, BCAX, ZBIO, MBX, BIOA, CAMP, UPB, SEPN. |
Source: FactSet
Of those 38 newly minted public biotechs, 35/38 (92%) of them listed with four-letter tickers, while 3/38 (8%) utilized a three-letter ticker. Furthermore, 35/38 (92%) picked a ticker that begins with the same first letter as the company’s name, while 3/38 (8%) did not.
Takeaway: a four-letter ticker is most appropriate for your company (it’s what people will expect when they put in a trade for your stock) and it should start with the same first letter as your company name.
There are a number of ways you can sensibly choose the next three letters, so here is a look at the most popular ways chosen by the 2022-2024 biotech/pharma IPO cohort.
Use an Approximated Name – 9/38 (24%)
See if you can approximate your biotech’s name in just four letters. Eight out of the 38 biotech/pharma IPOs of 2022-24 took this approach, and I would argue quite successfully.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| Vigil Neuroscience, Inc. | VIGL |
| Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | AMLX |
| Arcellx, Inc. | ACLX |
| Third Harmonic Bio, Inc. | THRD |
| Lexeo Therapeutics, Inc. | LXEO |
| Artiva Biotherapeutics, Inc. | ARTV |
| Prime Medicine, Inc. | PRME |
| CAMP4 Therapeutics Corp. | CAMP |
Source: FactSet
Acerlyrin cleverly used phonetic substitutes when picking its ticker – SLRN – although the disadvantage of that was losing “A” as the first letter of its ticker.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| ACELYRIN, Inc. | SLRN |
Source: FactSet
First Three Syllables, Last Letter – 6/38 (16%)
The second most popular ticker format (16% of the cohort) was one that uses the first three syllables of a biotech’s name and closes with the last letter. This seems to be tied into research attributed to Cambridge University, that our brains can read jumbled words so long as the first and last letters are correctly placed.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| HilleVax, Inc. | HLVX |
| Apogee Therapeutics, Inc. | APGE |
| Sagimet Biosciences, Inc. | SGMT |
| Neumora Therapeutics, Inc. | NMRA |
| Contineum Therapeutics, Inc. | CTNM |
| Alumis, Inc. | ALMS |
Source: FactSet
Use The First Four Letters of Your Company Name – 5/38 (13%)
And if you can’t approximate your name in four letters, why not just use the first four letters of your company name? 13% of the 2022-24 cohort decided on this approach.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| CinCor Pharma, Inc. | CINC |
| PepGen, Inc. | PEPG |
| CG Oncology, Inc. | CGON |
| Rapport Therapeutics, Inc. | RAPP |
| BioAge Labs, Inc. | BIOA |
Source: FactSet
TX Examples – 2/38 (5%)
Two more biotechs – representing 5% of our cohort – decided to end their ticker with a “TX” suffix – an abbreviation for therapeutics – and to use the first two letters to abbreviate their name.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| AN2 Therapeutics, Inc. | ANTX |
| Kyverna Therapeutics, Inc. | KYTX |
Source: FactSet
Three Letters and an X – 3/38 (8%)
And if all your preferred tickers are taken, another approach is to approximate your company name with three letters and then add an “X”. 8% of the 2022-24 biotech/pharma IPOs did this.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| Turnstone Biologics Corp. | TSBX |
| Cargo Therapeutics, Inc. | CRGX |
| Bicara Therapeutics, Inc. | BCAX |
Source: FactSet
Associated Four Letter Words/Acronyms – 3/38 (8%)
Another practice is to pick a ticker related to your science, indication area or vision. Structure Therapeutics decided on GPCR for its ticker given its pipeline of G Protein-Coupled Receptor-targeted small molecules, while Fractyl Health decided on GUTS given its focus on obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Boundless Bio, on the other hand, chose BOLD as its ticker, which echoes the (current) message on the landing page of their website: “We are a team of bold innovators dedicated to delivering novel therapies for patients with intractable oncogene amplified cancers.”
| Company Name | Ticker |
| Structure Therapeutics, Inc. | GPCR |
| Fractyl Health, Inc. | GUTS |
| Boundless Bio, Inc. | BOLD |
Source: FactSet
Other examples from companies with similar ideas, but who listed before 2022-2024, are Ginkgo Bioworks and Avidity Biosciences – who used DNA (for deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (for ribonucleic acid) respectively for their tickers.
| Company Name | Ticker |
| Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. | DNA |
| Avidity Biosciences, Inc. | RNA |
Source: FactSet
Other Ticker Ideas
Note that the themes just described only account for 28 of the 38 biotech/pharma IPOs (74%) from 2022-24. Other managements had their own ideas, which I hope for their sake prove to be memorable. Certainly, the most popular methodologies above are the ones I would recommend to my private biotech clients looking to go public.
How to Reserve a Stock Exchange Ticker
The SEC established the Intermarket Symbol Reservation Authority (ISRA) to manage a system for administering (and reserving) tickers for stocks. Equity exchanges like NASDAQ and the NYSE are required to follow ISRA’s guidelines when listing new companies.
Both exchanges can only reserve a ticker when an issuer or its advisor requests it, and they can only do so if they have a reasonable basis to believe the symbol will be used (i.e. the stock will start trading) within 24 months. Reservations are free and are typically completed in 2-3 business days.
Importantly, companies can only hold one reservation at a time. This and the other rules above prevent “symbol-squatting,” where speculators anticipate and reserve future listers’ preferred tickers in the hope of financial gain or as a spoiler tactic.