San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: IPOs, CareFusion, and More

Biotech laboratory pipettes

The IPO market continued to chill for life sciences companies, as generalist investors apparently lost their enthusiasm for the sector. Here are the details, along with the rest of San Diego’s life sciences news.

—San Diego-based Vital Therapies postponed its IPO, as investor demand for biotech stocks cooled, especially among the institutional investors who don’t specialize in the life sciences sector. Vital Therapies has been developing an artificial liver for treating acute liver failure. The company wanted to raise $75 million by offering 4.4 million shares at $16 to $18 a share.

—Despite tougher market conditions, San Diego’s Biocept Laboratories is still proceeding with its planned IPO, setting the terms for its public-market debut with a price range between $10 and $12. The cancer diagnostics specialist hopes to raise $20 million by offering 1.8 million shares. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Biocept Laboratories would command a fully diluted market value of $52 million.

—San Diego’s CareFusion (NYSE: [[ticker:CFN]]) said it would pay $500 million to acquire the respiratory care and anesthesiology products business of GE’s Vital Signs subsidiary. Vital Signs generates annual revenue of $250 million, and CareFusion chairman and CEO Kieran T. Gallahue said the Vital Signs business is “well-aligned” with CareFusion’s long-term growth strategy and helps build an international presence. CareFusion makes Pyxis automated drug dispensing machines, Alaris intravenous pumps, ventilators, and other products.

—San Diego-based Cardium Therapeutics (NYSE: [[ticker:CXM]]) said it sold a nutritional supplement business called “To Go Brands” to Connecticut-based Cell-nique Corp. in a deal worth $2.5 million. Cardium develops topical wound care gels, heart disease medications, and other products, and has a market valuation of slightly more than $5 million. Earlier this year, Cardium sold its InnerCool subsidiary to a U.S. affiliate of Philips for roughly $12.5 million.

—San Diego’s Adamis Pharmaceuticals, which is developing treatments for asthma, said it has filed for a secondary public offering that could be as much as $25 million and plans a reverse stock split of its common stock. The company hopes to move its listing from the over-the-counter market, where it trades under the ticker symbol ADMP, to the Nasdaq market. Adamis intends to use about $7 million of the net proceeds to make the final payment to 3M to acquire the assets relating to the Taper dry-powder inhaler technology.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.