By Chris Dieterich
NEW YORK--LipoScience Inc. (LPDX) rose in its trading debut
after selling shares well below earlier expectations, a mixed start
for the year's first health-care offering.
Shares opened at $9.75 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, up 8.3% from
their $9 offer price. Shares traded at $9.71 recently.
The price of LipoScience's offering came in sharply lower than
estimates originally outlined in a documents filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Shares priced at the low end of
a range that had be trimmed to $9-to-$10, below the $13-to-$15 band
put forth previously in SEC documents. The deal raised $45 million
based on the offer price. Previous calculations had it potentially
raising as much as $75 million.
The tough pricing follows a previous attempt by LipoScience to
go public a decade ago. The company filed for an initial public
offering in 2002. But, amid the fallout of the dot-com bubble, it
withdrew its bid later that year, citing "difficult market
conditions for initial public offerings."
The Raleigh, N.C., firm makes medical-diagnostic tests and
analytical tools. Its key product measures low-density lipoprotein,
or LDL, particles in blood that can provide clues about heart
disease. The test has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, and LipoScience sees a strong market for growth,
estimating some 75 million traditional cholesterol tests--known as
lipid panels--are performed each year in the U.S. LipoScience
contends that its tests address the deficiencies of traditional
cholesterol testing.
The company says it has eight million orders for its tests, and
said it will use the bulk of the IPO proceeds to ramp up sales and
marketing efforts.
LipoScience's revenue grew 24%, to $41.2 million, in the first
nine months of 2012, compared with the year-earlier period. It
booked net income of $1 million over the same period, up from a
loss of $568,000 in the year-earlier period.
Barclays PLC (BCS), UBS AG (UBS) and Piper Jaffray & Co. are
the IPO's lead underwriters.
Write to Chris Dieterich at
christopher.dieterich@dowjones.com;
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