NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Helicos BioSciences has filed a new preliminary prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for the sale of around 9.6 million shares by shareholders of the firm.
The filing updates a previous prospectus for the sale of 68.4 million common shares owned by shareholders who participated in the firm's private placement in December. At this time, Helicos is only registering 22.5 percent of the shares issued in the private placement. Helicos will receive none of the proceeds from the sale of the shares.
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.
According to the most recent prospectus, which was filed with the SEC yesterday, approximately 14.9 percent of Helicos' outstanding common stock may be sold under the offering, and around 20.2 percent of the firm's common stock are eligible for resale by the selling shareholders.
Helicos also noted in the prospectus that the selling stockholders have the right to acquire up to nearly 25.7 million additional shares of common stock upon the exercise of warrants issued to them in the private placement.
The firm noted that as of Dec. 31, 2008, it held $19.7 million in cash, which it believes is sufficient to fund operations into the first quarter of 2010. Helicos noted that it expects that it will need to raise additional funds in or before Q1 2010.
In Thursday trade on the Nasdaq, Helicos' shares closed up 7 percent at $.62.