NEW YORK – Biodesix today priced its initial public offering of 4 million shares of its common stock at $18 per share for anticipated gross proceeds of $72 million.
Shares of the Boulder, Colorado-based firm will begin trading on the Nasdaq today under ticker symbol "BDSX".
Biodesix is also granting the IPO underwriters a 30-day option to purchase an additional 600,000 shares at the offering price, which would raise an additional $10.8 million. The firm expects the offering to close on Oct. 30.
Morgan Stanley and William Blair are the lead book-running managers for the offering, while Canaccord Genuity is acting lead manager and BTIG is co-manager.
In an amended preliminary prospectus filed with the US Securities and Exchange earlier this week, Biodesix said that it will use the financing to support its commercial expansion of sales, marketing, reimbursement, customer support, business development, support product pipeline, research and development, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
Biodesix also said it may also use a portion of the IPO's net proceeds to co-develop, acquire, or invest in products, technologies, or businesses that are complementary to its business.
In the SEC document, the firm calls itself a "leading data-driven diagnostic solutions company leveraging state of the art technologies with our proprietary artificial intelligence platform to discover, develop, and commercialize solutions for clinical unmet needs, with a primary focus in lung disease." The company leverages multiple omics technologies using a variety of assay techniques including Droplet Digital (ddPCR), next-generation sequencing (NGS), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and its proprietary DeepMALDI mass spectrometry platform.
For the six months ended June 30, Biodesix had cash and cash equivalents of $11.7 million. The firm reported total revenues of $9.3 million, compared to revenues of $12.3 million in the year-ago quarter. It also reported a net loss of $18.0 million, compared to a loss of $14.6 million a year earlier.
Biodesix has commercially launched six diagnostic tests, as well as more than 30 assays for research use that the firm said has been used by over 50 biopharmaceutical customers and academic partners.
In lung cancer, the company offers four diagnostic blood-based assays, including its Nodify XL2 and Nodify CDT assays to assess the risk of lung cancer to guide the most appropriate treatment pathway. The firm's liquid biopsy GeneStrat and proteomic VeriStrat tests are used post-diagnosis of lung cancer to measure the number of mutations in the tumor and the state of the patient's immune system, as well as to guide treatment decisions.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Biodesix partnered with Bio-Rad Laboratories to commercialize that company's tests, SARS-CoV-2 ddPCR and the Platelia SARS-CoV-2 Total Ab, for detecting SARS-CoV-2. Both tests received Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration.