UK Stem Cell Firm Struggles With European IPO Market
Related News: Stem Cell CompaniesStem Cell Sciences stated last Wednesday it intends to float on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market. This move that would make the Scottish company one of the first embryonic stem cell related firms in the world to go public.
The company is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and sells cultures of embryonic stem cells to drug companies for use in screening potential medicines in early-stage preclinical trials. Stem Cell Sciences has provided the U.K. regulatory authorities with the required 10 day notice of its intended IPO.
With this IPO, it is hoping to raise £10 million to £15 million ($18.2 million to $27.3 million USD). This would add to the overall value of the company putting it at £30 million to £40 million ($54.7 million to $72.9 million USD). The goal of this funding is to enable the company to add new facilities in Cambridge, England and in California. Furthermore, it also said that it would be the largest embryonic stem cell company based on the number of employees to be publicly traded.
Stem Cell Sciences’ debut on the public markets would be unusual because of its timing and the nature of its biotech business. Few public stem cell companies exist, and only Geron of Menlo Park, California, works on embryonic stem cells. In addition, the European public markets have been far from kind to their recent biotech additions.
"The venture capital reception to the stem cell industry is very much focused on the cell therapy outcome," Peter Mountford, CEO of Stem Cell Sciences said. "We’re not focused on cell therapy outcome just yet and it’s very difficult to get that story past the venture capital market, even though we’ve matched revenues from biopharmaceuticals partners with capital investments."
Posted on June 27, 2005 12:23 PM