This CFO’s company has delivered the highest return for a 2026 IPO

Dominic Carrano was on a “traditional accounting” path when a chance posting at the end of his six years at Deloitte launched his career in biotech, ultimately leading him to Veradermics and its successful IPO in February 2026—one of the best aftermarket performers of the year. Now, Carrano can’t imagine doing anything else.

After a stint at two other biotech companies, Carrano was Veradermics’s fifth employee when he joined the clinical-stage company developing an oral therapy to treat pattern hair loss (PHL) in 2023 as VP of finance. He was named CFO in February 2025.

What was Veradermics’s approach to going public?

Prior to its IPO, it raised a $150 million Series C round in October 2025. Its goals were to “build capital” and attract “strong investors that could support us on a potential public entrance,” Carrano said. “Once we had those two in hand, we ran toward the IPO window.”

The timing factor was that Veradermics wanted to go public before it got Phase 3 clinical trial data, Carrano said. The company considered all its options, but chose to go with a traditional IPO. “We were able to raise a lot of capital, and we felt confident between the investor base and advisors like in the banks and whatnot that the traditional IPO was the right path for us,” he said.

But to get to market, the Veradermics team had to navigate two government shutdowns, one in late 2025 and another in early 2026. “The government shutdowns made our timelines less predictable because the timing of the SEC comments was uncertain. Th[at] required us to stay nimble and ready to act once feedback was received to ensure we could remain on track with our timelines for the planned listing date,” Carrano said. “When the government shuts down, they don’t review the filings.”

Still, Veradermics was able to complete the IPO in roughly four months, Carrano said. The company’s preparation was key. Whether it was conducting early audits, working with advisors or starting the drafting of regulatory documents ahead of time, “all of that readiness work really allowed us to execute in an accelerated timeline,” Carrano said. “We had to hit certain milestones or we were not going to complete the process.”

The hard work paid off when Veradermics’s stock price more than doubled during its February 4 market debut. Shares have since soared in the aftermarket and were up 567% as of Oct. 14. Shares of Veradermics have had the highest percentage return of any of this year’sIPOs, according to Renaissance Capital, including the mega-offerings from SpaceX and Cerebras Systems.

The buzz. There’s lots of excitement surrounding Veradermics right now. VDPHL01, its only drug candidate, is an oral, non-hormonal extended release formulation of minoxidil, a drug originally used to treat hypertension. In August, the biotech company released results of a Phase 2 open-label study for women, and expects topline data for its Phase 3 trial in men later this year. Phase 3 is typically the last stage before a company will ask the FDA to approve the drug.

There’s a big opportunity in pattern hair loss, or PHL, right now, Carrano said. About 80 million people—50 million men and 30 million women—in the US suffer from PHL, according to Veradermics.

The future. “VDPHL01 could be the first oral minoxidil approved for hair loss for both males and females,” Leerink analysts wrote in an August 11 research note.

However, the company is not yet profitable. Second-quarter losses widened to $23.5 million, compared with $15.6 million in losses for the same period in 2025. The biotech company had nearly $820 million in cash as of June 30. This includes about $295 million in gross proceeds from its IPO and $472 million from a May follow-on and private placement.

“The revenues and the profitability will come in the future,” Carrano said.

Carrano’s day-to-day has evolved since the IPO. He’s focused on Veradermics investors, including proactively communicating with them. “Pattern hair loss is a fairly new market. And educating the Street on that is important to us, and staying engaged with our investors is important,” he said.

He also spends time “building that back office for potential commercial readiness.” Strategic planning, including how to deploy capital, is also a component of his day. “It’s a mix of all those. On any given day, one can be more than the other,” he said.