Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ:SQNM) this week became the latest genomics firm to raise money with an $84 million public offering.
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 offering on Dec. 1 and yesterday priced the 14 million shares at $6.00 a piece, according to the company. The shares opened at $6.75 this morning.
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MassDevice Staff Website The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
On October 27, Pacific Biosciences of California Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) entered the market and raised $200 million. On the same day, Complete Genomics Inc. (NASDAQ: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.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
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. (NASDAQ:LIFE) and Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN), two other companies trying to position themselves for the predicted exponential growth of DNA sequencing industry.
The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
