Bioheart: A new record for IPO futility?
The embattled cell-therapy startup Bioheart finally limped across the IPO goal line yesterday, but it was a Pyhrric victory. The startup, which once sought $70 million, ended up netting as little as $1.5 million. And almost half of that amount came directly from Bioheart founder Henry Leonhardt instead of outside investors.
Bioheart, of course, has had no shortage of problems, which we’ve chronicled over at VentureBeat Life Sciences. For the latest installment, see here.
Three yards and a cloud of dust: Bioheart limps across the IPO goal line, but with little to show for its struggles
The New York Giants they ain’t, but the team at embattled cell-therapy startup Bioheart still managed to defy long odds and successfully dragged their company into the IPO endzone earlier today. No doubt football great Dan Marino — one of the Sunrise, Fla., biotech’s backers — fired everyone up with a suitable locker-room pep talk.
Not for Bioheart was the easy dodge of yanking its IPO due to “unfavorable market conditions” — although conditions are, in… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Jan. 17, 2007
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
TransEnterix gets $21M for minimally invasive GI surgery (release)
Stem-cell developer Bioheart’s IPO postponed (Forbes.com)
Medical-practice software provider AdvancedMD acquired by Francisco Partners (release)
Peptimmune draws $8.2M for MS drug trials (release)
Drug-delivery co. Talima Thera names Martin Babler CEO (release)
Alimera Sciences aims for autumn IPO to fund diabetic eye-disease drug (VentureWire, sub req’d)
TransEnterix gets $21M for minimally invasive GI surgery — TransEnterix (no Web site), a Research Triangle Park, N.C., device maker developing tools for “natural orifice”… Continue Reading
IPO roundup: Bioheart, Merrion Pharma in limbo; Reliant vs. Reliant road shows; upcoming offerings
Bioheart’s IPO-related chest pains continue — The week of Oct. 22 has come and gone, and there’s no sign of the scheduled — and already battered — IPO of Bioheart, the Florida company that hopes to treat damaged hearts with patients’ own muscle stem cells. IPO Home now lists the IPO as scheduled on a “day-to-day” basis.
So the jury is still out as to whether the company’s recent halving of its IPO terms will still… Continue Reading
I told you so: Eat your Bioheart out
(UPDATED: See below.)
I’m not usually one to gloat — oh, who are we kidding? The news today that Bioheart, an oddball “adult” stem-cell company based in Sunrise, Fla., has slashed its IPO price range — essentially halving the company’s value — and fired its underwriters may not be exactly what I predicted when I hazed the company back in July– but it’ll certainly do for now.
For Bioheart — which, I just realized, is backed by the… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Friday, Oct. 12, 2007
Featured companies: CeraPedics, Lab21, Incisive Surgical, Orasi Medical, Transoma Medcal, ZyGem
(UPDATED: Expanded items on Transoma, Lab21 and Orasi.)
Medical-device maker Transoma files for $75M IPO — St. Paul, Minn.-based Transoma Medical, a developer of implantable wireless diagnostic sensors, filed to raise $75 million in an initial offering. The company is currently focused on the markets for heart patients and general biomedical research.
Transoma received FDA “clearance” for its first product on Oct. 1. That device, called the Sleuth ECG… Continue Reading
Bioheart: A risky stem-cell company boosts its IPO hopes
(UPDATED: See below.)
Sunrise, Fla.-based Bioheart thinks enough of its stem-cell treatment for heart disease that it has just boosted its expected IPO take by $10 million, to $45 million. A close reading of its latest SEC filing, however, raises a fair number of questions for would-be investors.
Bioheart’s leading therapy candidate is MyoCell, a treatment designed to reverse heart-attack damage. MyoCell consists of myoblasts — a kind of muscle stem cell — that are removed from a… Continue Reading