While some diagnostics companies are ramping up their IPOs, Singulex is taking a different route to raise money. The California provider of diagnostic instruments, cardiovascular tests and other services just nailed down $55 million in debt and equity financing.
Alameda-based Singulex canceled a proposed IPO in late December that initially would have surpassed $86 million and was scaled back to $70 million before the company pulled the plug. At the time, Singulex blamed poor market conditions.
Guido Baechler, Singulex's president and CEO, notes in a statement that the company wants to use its new debt/equity money, in part, to propel the development and launch of a fully automated diagnostic instrument and assays for the global market. This would add to the company's ongoing focus on cardiovascular diagnostic testing services and life sciences research tools. Singulex's Single Molecule Counting technology is at the core of all the businesses; it helps boost assay sensitivity.
Baechler explained that company sees expansion into the in vitro diagnostics market as "a key milestone in our long-term growth strategy."
Out of Singulex's new funding round, $40 million comes from a debt facility from Oxford Finance and Silicon Valley Bank. The rest is $15 million in equity financing, which Singulex secured in June 2013.
Recently, cancer diagnostics outfit Foundation Medicine ($FMI) went public and raised $106 million. Molecular diagnostics company Veracyte also filed plans for a proposed IPO that could come close to $75 million. California's Biocept Laboratories unveiled IPO plans worth up to $23 million.
- read the release
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