NEW YORK, Sept 29 – Chipmaker Ciphergen Biosystems (Nasdaq: CIPH) showed a gain of 100 percent on its first day of trading while bioinformatics company Genomica (Nasdaq: GNOM) gained only 2 percent.
Winton Gibbons, genomics analyst at William Blair, said, “Ciphergen’s strength reflects proteomics as being one of the important major investment areas in the post-genomic era. The fact that Genomica is relatively flat reflects that it’s difficult for a bioinformatics company to attract attention without proprietary content, even though its software is good.”
One reason for the interest in Ciphergen is pent up demand by investors for companies involved in proteomics, and not many to invest in, said Gibbons.
Ciphergen offered 5.5 million shares of its common stock for $16 per share on the Nasdaq. The offering, which was priced at the high-end of the $14-$16 range, raised $88 million.
The Fremont, Calif.-based company closed up 16, or 100 percent, at 32.
SG Cowen was the lead managing underwriter and ING Barings and Warburg Dillon Read were co-managers.
Ciphergen develops, manufactures, and markets the ProteinChip System, which enables protein discovery, characterization, and assay development to provide researchers with a better understanding of biological functions at the protein level.
Genomica of Boulder, Colo., priced its initial public offering of 6.4 million shares of common stock on the Nasdaq at $19 per share. The company raised $122.4 million.
The company closed up 7/16, or 2.3 percent, at 19 7/16.
CIBC was the lead manager for Genomica’s offering and Dain Rauscher Wessels and Prudential Vector Healthcare Group were the co-managers.
Officials at CIBC and Prudential Vector Healthcare Group declined to comment citing quiet period rules for underwriters involved in IPOs.
Genomica develops software products and services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology researchers that are designed to accelerate the drug discovery and development process.