Replies to post #84633 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Readies IPO

[IBS doesn’t strike me as the right kind of drug indication for today’s healthcare markets, but no one asked for my opinion :- ) ]

http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2009/11/21/ironwood_pharmaceuticals_plans_ipo/

›By Todd Wallack
November 21, 2009

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge biotechnology company developing a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, yesterday filed plans to go public.

The move is the latest sign that local companies are once again trying to raise money through initial public offerings. The IPO market had been largely shutdown since the stock market started declining, and not a single venture-backed company went public in Massachusetts last year. But some firms have started selling stock in recent months as financial markets have bounced back from their March lows.

Several companies have launched IPOs in the past few months, including high-tech battery maker A123 Systems Inc. The Watertown company raised $378 million in September. Nationwide, there were five IPOs this week, the most since the market began heating up again in mid-September. There have been 22 new offerings so far this quarter, compared with one in the final three months of last year, and more than 90 companies are planning to go public in 2010.

Ironwood, started in 1998, did not specify in yesterday’s filing how much it plans to raise by selling stock. It has already attracted $306 million in private equity financing. Ironwood officials could not be reached for comment.

The company originally operated as Microbia Inc. and changed its name in 2008. Ironwood, which has 167 employees, is in the late stages of testing a drug called Linaclotide to treat irritable bowel syndrome.

Peter M. Hecht, a former research fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, has served as chief executive since the company was founded.

In addition to developing drugs, Ironwood also is partial owner of Microbia, which focuses on developing specialty biochemicals. But the company doesn’t yet have any drugs on the market and needs additional money to continue developing Linaclotide and other potential treatments. It had about $99 million in cash as of Sept. 30.

Earlier this month, Ironwood agreed to license the rights to commercialize Linaclotide in several Asian countries to a Japanese company, Astellas Pharma Inc., in exchange for $75 million.‹