NEW YORK — 908 Devices, a developer of miniature mass spectrometers, last week filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to go public on the Nasdaq market.
The Boston, Massachusetts-based company did not specify the number of shares it plans to offer or give a price range for the proposed initial public offering. Cowen and SVB Leerink will act as lead book-running managers for the proposed offering.
908 was founded in 2012 to commercialize technology developed by Michael Ramsey, a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina and the company's scientific founder and a member of its board. Its core technologies include microfluidic capillary-electrophoresis systems for upfront separation of samples and high-pressure mass spec analyzers that are able to operate without the vacuum conditions used in conventional systems, allowing for much smaller and cheaper instruments.
While 908 initially focused on military, hazmat, and hydrocarbon processing applications, it has in recent years made inroads into life sciences markets placing instruments with a number of pharma firms and academic institutions.
The company said it planned to use the proceeds from the offering to expand its commercial operations and sales of its systems and to fund research and development to extend the applications of its existing devices and develop new ones.
908 posted $18 million in revenues in 2019 and $21.2 million in the first three quarters of 2020. As of Sept. 30, 2020, it had cash of $19.7 million.
The company's CEO is Kevin Knopp, formerly co-founder of Ahura Scientific, which was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2010.