Sequenom Inc.’s (NSDQ:SQNM) $84 million public offering this week was the latest in a series of large public funding rounds for genomic analysis companies.*
The San Diego-based company develops molecular diagnostics technologies for "translational research, oncology, agricultural genomics and in vitro diagnostics for prenatal and retinal disorders," according to its website.
Sequenom announced the financing on Dec. 1 and yesterday priced the offering’s new 14 million shares at $6.00 a piece, according to the company. The shares opened at $6.75 this morning.
On October 27, Pacific Biosciences of California Inc. (NSDQ:PACB) entered the market and raised $200 million. On the same day, Complete Genomics Inc. (NSDQ:GNOM) announced that it filed for an IPO worth almost $100 million.
The genome sequencing market is expected to grow from $1.2 billion in 2009 to more than $3.6 billion by 2014, according to Scientia Advisors, which Pacific Biosciences cited in its IPO filing.
Healthcare IT, in addition to the pharmaceutical industry, are already heading in the direction of biomarker-based medicine, Scientia Advisors managing partner Harry Glorikian told MassDevice at Harvard Medical School’s World Health Forum in Boston in October. If a patient has positive or negative results for a particular test, there are already alarms built into healthcare IT applications that warn doctors about how certain treatments could affect the patient, said Glorikian.
“If that’s not directing the practice of medicine, I don’t know what is,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a guideline. It’s not etched in stone, but if you do something that it says you shouldn’t, ‘What was you medical rational for doing that?'” he asked.
The race to bring the cost of complete genome sequencing down has grown more and more competitive over the last couple months. In October, Helicos Biosciences Corp. (OTC:HLCS) amended its genome sequencing technology patent infringement lawsuit against Pacific Biosciences to include Life Technologies Corp. (NSDQ:LIFE) and Illumina Inc. (NSDQ:ILMN), two other companies trying to position themselves for the predicted exponential growth of DNA sequencing industry.
*Correction, Dec. 3, 2010: This article originally stated that the Sequenom’s offering was an initial public offering, or IPO. The public offering Sequenom made was its secondary offering; the company went public in 2000. Return to the corrected sentence.
