Diagnostics maker LipoScience prices $40M IPO

LipoScience is chasing a $40 million IPO to help expand its Vantera diagnostic platform--courtesy of LipoScience

North Carolina's LipoScience is going public, pricing a $40 million IPO and jumping onto the Nasdaq under $LPDX.

Backed by Barclays, the diagnostics company expects to net $38.6 million in the offering, planning to spend the cash on expanding marketing and R&D around Vantera, its now-FDA-cleared clinical analyzer.

LipoScience has already commercialized a heart-disease-related assay for the Vantera platform, shipping about 8 million units of the NMR LipoProfile test, which uses nuclear magnetic resonance detection to determine a patient's low-density lipoprotein particle number from a blood sample. With that information, physicians can better personalize how they treat patients at risk for heart disease, LipoScience says.

The company long administered NMR LipoProfile at its CLIA-certified laboratory in North Carolina, but now that it has the FDA's blessing on the Vantera platform, the company is looking to capitalize. LipoScience is planning to staff up with its IPO haul, predicting a spike in marketing costs as it pushes to increase the adoption of its technology.

- read the announcement

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