NEW YORK, Sept 19 – Spotfire, a developer of analytics software used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, is considering an initial public offering on the Nasdaq next year.
Chris Ahlberg, Spotfire’s CEO, said the Cambridge, Mass.-based company expects to use money from an IPO for general business purposes. He declined to say how much the company hopes to raise.
The IPO would cap a string of offerings by other bioinformatics players. Compugen (Nasdaq: CGEN) of Tel Aviv, Lion Bioscience (Neuer Markt: LIO; Nasdaq: LEON) of Heidelberg, and Rosetta Inpharmatics (Nasdaq: RSTA) all went public this summer. And NetGenics, InforMax, and Genomica are all in the pipeline.
Ahlberg said that Spotfire’s software has broad applications, which should help to expand the company’s revenue bases. Besides biotechnology customers, Spotfire has users in the chemicals, semiconductor, and manufacturing industries.
The company’s products use a single workspace to combine data, analytical tools, and reporting capabilities needed for decision-making by individuals and groups.