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Complete Genomics Files for IPO

By a GenomeWeb staff reporter

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Complete Genomics has filed documents for a proposed initial public offering to raise about $86.3 million.

The sequencing services company based in Mountain View, Calif., filed its S-1 document with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The company did not disclose in the preliminary prospectus a share price or the number of shares that it intends to sell.

Complete Genomics said that it would use proceeds from the offering to finance further development and commercialization of its technology, sales and marketing activities, capital expenditures to expand its facilities and operations, and working capital and other general corporate purposes.

It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol "GNOM."

Investment banks UBS and Jefferies will act as joint book-running managers. Baird and Cowen and Company will act as co-managers.

Complete Genomics was founded in 2005 and its main technology is its Complete Genomics Analysis Platform, which is based on the firm's proprietary DNA arrays and ligation-based read technology. In its SEC filing, Complete Genomics said that while complete human genome sequencing is "generally deemed to be coverage of at least 90 percent of the nucleotide in the genome," it is able to achieve an accuracy level of 99.999 percent "at a total cost that is significantly less than the total cost of purchase and using commercially available DNA sequencing instruments."

It added that it believes that it will be the first firm able to offer complete sequencing of the human genome for less than $1,000.

As of July 20, Complete Genomics had sequenced more than 200 complete human genomes since the beginning of the year, it said in its filing. In the first three weeks of July, the company sequenced more than 100 complete genomes, and has a backlog of more than 500 genomes.

Its customers include "some of the leading global academic and government research centers and biopharmaceutical companies," the company said, and by the end of this year, Complete Genomics expects it will have the capacity to sequence and analyze more than 400 complete genomes per month. Next year, it anticipates expanding its capacity three-fold.

In 2009, the company posted $623,000 in revenues and a net loss of $35.9 million, or $386.56 per share. R&D spending for 2009 was $22.4 million, and sales, marketing, general, and administrative costs totaled $6.8 million.

Through the first three months of 2010, it had $336,000 in revenues and a net loss of $14.3 million, or $51.15 per share, compared to no revenues, and a net loss of $9.5 million, or $105.92 per share, a year ago.

R&D costs for the three months ended March 31 totaled $6.2 million, down from $6.7 million a year ago. Sales, marketing, general, and administrative spending rose to $4.3 million during the quarter from $1.7 million from the year-ago period.

As of March 31, it had $2.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, Complete Genomics said.

Clifford Reid is Complete Genomics' president and CEO. Ajay Bansal is its CFO, and Radoje Drmanac is the CSO. Members of its scientific advisory board include George Church, Lee Hood, Mark Chee, and Douglas Lauffenburger.