Update: The story was updated on May 19 to include information about the underwriters exercising their overallotment option, increasing the proceed amount raised from the offering.
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Belgian molecular diagnostics firm Biocartis went public on Monday in Belgium, raising about €115 million ($128 million) in proceeds.
The company issued 8,695,652 shares of its common stock at €11.50 per share as part of its initial public offering. Its shares list on Euronext Brussels under ticker symbol "BCART."
On May 19, the firm said that the underwriters on the offering had exercised their overallotment option in full, raising the total gross proceeds from an earlier amount of €100 million.
Biocartis develops molecular diagnostic platforms and tests, and in September raised €64.5 million in a private financing round. Its flagship platform is the Idylla system, a fully automated sample-in, result-out instrument for in vitro diagnostic use. Idylla and Biocartis' BRAF mutation test received CE-IVD marking in September.
In January, Biocartis Chairman and CEO Rudi Pauwels said at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference that the company is developing additional Idylla assays for solid biopsies, and that it anticipates launching assays in 2015 for KRAS and NRAS. In 2016 Biocartis' focus will include proprietary cancer biomarkers, and the firm plans to develop technologies around liquid biopsies, Pauwels added.
Biocartis formed a joint venture last summer with Pronota and spun off its DMAT platform to the new firm called MyCartis. DMAT is a multiplex system for rapid and cost-effective detection of protein and nucleic acid biomarkers.
Earlier this month, Biocartis and Microbiome announced a collaboration to develop an integrated multiplex, real-time PCR-based assay for the rapid detection of bloodstream infections.