Apnimed CEO Kevin LindApnimedEven before it gets approval for its sleep apnea pill, Apnimed is testing investor appetite.The Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech priced its shares at $16 to raise $192 million in an upsized IPO that would value the company at more than $600 million. The company’s stock is set to begin trading on Friday on Nasdaq.“It’s been a one-size, fits-all disease, treated with a one-size, fits-all machine,” CEO Kevin Lind, 50, tells Forbes. “There is a better way.”Lind took over as CEO from cofounder Larry Miller, a pulmonary doctor and serial entrepreneur who had postponed his own retirement to launch the company, in June. Lind, the company’s former board chairman, had previously cofounded Longboard Pharmaceuticals, which developed an epilepsy drug and was acquired by Denmark’s Lundbeck for $2.6 billion in 2024. Miller, 73, remains on the board as vice chairman.Forbes profiled the company and its efforts to develop a drug for sleep apnea, a condition that affects as many as 80 million people in the U.S. alone, earlier this year.Researchers have been trying without success for decades to develop a drug that could fix sleep apnea, a common condition in which breathing pauses during sleep, sometimes lowering oxygen levels to a dangerous degree. Today, the primary treatment for the disease is a continuous positive airway pressure machine, known as a CPAP, which forces air down the wearer’s throat to keep it open. The device works, but no surprise, it’s hated by most everyone who has to use it. Many people with sleep apnea refuse to try it or won’t even get diagnosed for fear they may have to.Lind says that only 23 million people – a minority of those with the disease – have been officially diagnosed, and of those 10.5 million remain untreated. “This gives us a tremendous opportunity to grow the market,” he says. “The easiest place for us to start is with the 10.5 million who are diagnosed and have chosen not to be treated.”Research shows that people with untreated sleep apnea are more likely to develop heart trouble, strokes and perhaps even Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. A treatment that’s easier for patients to bear could have a transformative impact on their overall health.That’s why when Harvard researcher Dr. Luigi Taranto Monetemurro, now Apnimed’s chief scientific officer, was testing a potential apnea medication back in November 2016, he was shocked to discover it was helping his subject breathe normally. Apnimed launched in 2017 after acquiring rights to that potential therapy. The company raised some $260 million from investors that include Morningside Group, Alpha Wave Global and Sectoral Asset Management at a valuation of around $400 million. Its early believers stand to make a bundle on the IPO. “The easiest place for us to start is with the 10.5 million who are diagnosed and have chosen not to be treated.”