Ambit drops $86M IPO as investors show little interest

Underscoring just how difficult it is to pull off a successful IPO these days, San Diego-based Ambit Biosciences quietly dropped its planned $86 million offering.

Ambit--a 2006 Fierce 15 company which has inked a lengthy list of impressive partnerships--initially outlined its plans for an IPO back in the fall of 2010, when a spike in filings had encouraged the biotech to attempt an initial offering. Citing a regulatory filing, Xconomy reports that the company's CFO said the currently available terms "are not sufficiently attractive" to push ahead on a discretionary financing. Ambit has raised an impressive $105 million over the years.

Several biotech companies have gone public this year with mixed results. Investors generally have shown little interest in betting on risky drug developers that are still some time away from a product approval. And the frenzy of interest in social media IPOs has stolen a significant amount of interest in IPOs.

Ambit specializes in kinase drug discovery and development. Apposite Healthcare Fund, OrbiMed Investors, Forward Ventures, GrowthWorks Canada, GIMV, MediImmune, Perseus-Soros Biopharmaceuticals Fund, and Roche have all invested in the biotech.

- read the story from Xconomy
- and here's more from socalTech