Developers line up for IPOs as Ironwood outlines $266M offering

It's been more than two years since a Boston biotech went public, but now two are at the starting gate and a prominent local lawyer says he knows of six more that are actively laying the foundation for an IPO.

"I have half a dozen clients that are planning to file registrations in the next six months, and maybe another six that are watching and waiting," Bill Whelan, co-chairman of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo, tells the Boston Business Journal. Though Whelan isn't naming names just yet.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and Aveo Pharmaceuticals have already thrown their hats into the IPO ring, with Ironwood outlining plans this morning to raise up to $266.7 million from its offering, well above its original target of $172 million. Ironwood says it will price its shares in the range of $14 to $16 each. Aveo is sticking with a more traditional approach, expecting about $86.3 million.

It became apparent at J.P. Morgan that a number of restive biotech CEOs have been carefully sizing up the public markets in recent months. Omeros may have officially ended the long IPO drought. However, the industry is carefully evaluating the fate of other companies that are testing investors' appetite for shares in biotechs that still need to spend heavily on R&D before they can expect to see any significant revenue streams start to flow.

- here's the story from the Boston Business Journal

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