Toward the end of 2001, the first new biotechnology filing on Nasdaq by NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA) and Biodelivery Science, and large secondary offerings from Biovail ($587.5 million; Toronto, ON, Canada) and ICOS ($313 million; Bothell, WA, USA) signaled the earliest crack in the shutters of the next window for initial public offerings (IPOs). Although most observers believe that the IPO window may not truly reopen until the middle of 2002 at the earliest, and possibly not for 18 months, companies, especially in Europe, are keen to ensure that they are prepared when the opportunity arises. Biotechnology IPOs had tailed off completely as the end of 2001 approached: all but $1 million of the paltry $313 million raised in IPOs globally came in the first half of the year.
In November, scheduled offerings by companies such as cancer drug developers, BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals (San Antonio, TX) and Xcyte Therapies (Seattle, WA), genomics discovery outfit Acadia Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA), and drug deliverer Acusphere (Cambridge, MA) were withdrawn or postponed, while Northwest Biotherapeutics (Bothell, WA), a cancer immunotherapy concern, added new underwriters and reduced the price of the offering it had filed originally back in August. Despite these indicators, however, mid-November also saw the first new biotech IPO filing since Zymogenetics (Seattle, WA) on September 10th, from proteomics-based discovery unit, NeoGenesis. Although the company had yet to set a price for the offering as Nature Biotechnology was going to press, many companies looking to float will be following Neogenesis' fate with great interest.
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