A genomics IPO. Maybe it'll be a million shares?
Wednesday February 9, 5:43 pm Eastern Time
Gene discoverer Lexicon Genetics files for $100 mln IPO
WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Lexicon Genetics Inc., which has a gene trapping technology to discover thousands of novel genes, filed on Wednesday to raise $100 million in an initial public stock offering.
The Woodlands, Texas-based Lexicon also has an Internet exchange, Lexygen.com, where researchers at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies subscribe to its OmniBank library of tens of thousands of mouse clones for drug discovery.
The genomics company's technology captures gene sequence information, allowing Lexicon to obtain the DNA sequences of rarely expressed genes as well as identify genes contained within the DNA sequence of the chromosome.
``Genomics represents an opportunity for the development of drugs that address medical needs for which there are presently no effective treatments ...,' Lexicon said.
Most drugs on the market interact with about 500 specific protein targets, each of which is encoded by a gene.
While estimates of the number of potential drug targets encoded within the human genome may vary, many experts
believe that genomics research could discover between 5,000 and 15,0000 new targets for pharmaceutical development,
the company said.
Lexicon, located online at lexicon-genetics.com, plans to use the net proceeds from the IPO to increase genomics research, expand its Human Gene Trap database and Omnibank database and library.
The company, whose competitors include Human Genome Sciences Inc. (NasdaqNM:HGSI - news), Incyte
Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NasdaqNM:INCY - news) and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NasdaqNM:MLNM - news), also hopes to use the proceeds to fund working capital, capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes, among other things.
The number of shares in the offering, their stock price and other details were not disclosed in the company's preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those figures are expected in future filings.
Lexicon has applied to list the IPO shares on Nasdaq under the symbol LEXG," and the underwriters are J.P. Morgan,
Credit Suisse First Boston, Dain Rauscher Wessels and Punk Zeigel & Co.
Major investors in Lexicon include the Baylor College of Medicine based in Texas, which holds 1,993,804 shares, or
7.84 percent, the filing said.
Jason |
