A Wisconsin firm that is the
beneficiary of more than $16 million from the California stem cell
agency today announced that it intends to go public to raise $57.3
million for its iPS cell ventures.
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| Jamie Thomson UCSB photo |
The firm is Cellular Dynamics
International, Inc., and was co-founded by internationally known stem
cell scientist Jamie Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, who is
currently the company's chief scientific officer. Thomson is also a professor
at UC Santa Barbara, where he is co-director of the Center for Stem
Cell Biology and Engineering.
In March, the California stem cell
agency awarded a $16 million grant to Cellular Dynamics to derive
three iPS cell lines from 3,000 individuals as part of the agency's
stem cell banking initiative. (Here is a link to the grant review summary.)
The company said in its SEC
filings that it also will be the prime subcontractor on a $10 million
grant that the Coriell Institute for Medical Research of Camden,
N.J., received in the agency's stem cell banking round. Cellular Dynamics said
some of the funds from the IPO will be used to complete its
California laboratory in leased space at the Buck Institute in
Novato, north of San Francisco.
Cellular Dynamics was founded in 2004
and sold its first commercial product in 2010. It reported revenues
of $6.6 million in 2012 and losses of $22.3 million. It has 115
full-time and part-time employees worldwide.
The company said,
“During 2011 and 2012, we had three large biopharmaceutical customers that individually accounted for greater than 10% of our total revenue in one or both years. Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) accounted for 10% of total revenue in 2011 and 18% of total revenue in 2012. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (Roche) accounted for 13% of total revenue in 2011 and GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) accounted for 11% of our total revenue in 2012.”
Cellular Dynamics also said in its
filings,
“Our total revenue grew from $2.6 million in 2011 to $6.6 million in 2012, an increase of 154%. This growth was driven by a 247% increase in sales of our iCell products which grew from $1.5 million in 2011 to $5.2 million in 2012. At December 31, 2011, our backlog of revenue expected to be recognized in 2012 was $1.1 million. At December 31, 2012, our backlog of revenue expected to be recognized in 2013 had grown to $4.1 million.
“For the three months ended March 31, 2013 our total revenue was $2.4 million, an increase of 109% over the corresponding period in 2012. This growth was driven primarily by an increase in iCell product sales, which grew from $0.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2012 to $1.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2013, an increase of 173%.”
Paul Knoepfler of UC Davis, writing on his blog, touched on some of the aspects of the IP issues involving
Cellular Dynamics and Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka, who won the Nobel Prize last year for discovering how to reprogram adult stem cells into pluripotent cells (the iPS process).
Knoepfler wrote,
"A recent question is the issue of who has the intellectual property (IP) rights to iPS cell technology. People have told me in the past that they wondered if Cellular Dynamics has unambiguous rights to develop all of these iPS cell-based products."
Knoepfler also wrote,
“This (the IPO) looks to be very interesting and could transform the field as it develops.”
News coverage today of the IPO filing
was light, but is more expected to surface tomorrow. Here is a link to the only story that had surfaced as of this writing.
No price or date has yet been set for
the offering.
