NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Helicos BioSciences today filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission a prospectus for the sale of 68.4 million common shares owned by shareholders who participated in the firm's private placement in December.
Helicos would not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of common stock sold from time to time under the prospectus by selling shareholders, it said. The roughly 68.4 million shares include nearly 25.7 million shares issuable to the selling stockholders upon exercise of their warrants.
In the December placement, the firm raised gross proceeds of around $18.6 million from the sale of 42.8 million units to investors, which included Atlas Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Highland Capital, Versant Ventures, Stephens, Vision Capital Advisors, and Stephen Quake, a Stanford professor and co-founder of Helicos.
Each unit consisted of one common share and one warrant to purchase .6 of a share of common stock at an exercise price of $.45 per share. The warrants have a five-year term and were exercisable immediately following closing of the transaction in December.
The filing of the shares with the SEC does not mean the shares will be sold by the investors. "The selling stockholders may sell some, all or none of their shares," Helicos noted in the filing.
Helicos' shares were down 6 percent at $.75 per share in Friday afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.