A tiny, upstart biotech company in Seattle dubbed Atossa Genetics has set out to raise roughly $6 million in a micro IPO designed to back its fledgling diagnostics tests and a new approach to delivering treatments for breast cancer. In an S-1 filed with the SEC, Atossa lays out its business plan, including its newly launched efforts at selling a diagnostic test to assess the risk of breast cancer in women aged 18 to 65.
Atossa Genetics is helmed by Dr. Stephen Quay, the former CEO of Nastech, which has undergone a metamorphosis into Marina Biotech, an RNA company that has been downsizing in an effort to stay afloat. Now Quay has outlined plans to sell a million shares in the company.
Aside from the diagnostics work, the biotech says it's working on new micro-catheter technology to facilitate a more focused approach to delivering treatments into milk ducts for pre-cancerous lesions. "By using this localized delivery method, patients receive high local concentrations of these drugs at the site of the pre-cancerous lesions, potentially promoting efficacy of the treatment while limiting systemic exposure, which has the potential to lower the overall toxicity of these treatments," the company states.
Atossa is no stranger to financial vicissitudes. Its independent auditors have already raised the question of the company's ability to continue as a going concern, according to its filing with the SEC. To answer that question, Atossa needs to raise money to fund its operating losses.
- read the S-1 filed with the SEC
- here's a story from the Puget Sound Business Journal