Drug development company BiolineRX Ltd. (TASE:BLRX) executives have met with underwriters to consider a possible offering on Nasdaq. The company apparently wants to raise a few tens of millions of dollars, and will not hold the offering unless it can obtain a company value higher than its current market cap on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) of NIS 542 million.
BiolineRX's share rose 6% on news, but fell back to end the day with a gain of 2.8% to NIS 4.83.
An offering on Nasdaq has been on BiolineRX's agenda for a long time. Outgoing CEO Dr. Morris Lester has said several times in the past that the Israeli capital market does not know how to price biomedical companies. Now that the primary market on Wall Street has reopened for business, the company has actively begun to consider the option. Talks are still only in the preliminary stage, and the company has not yet filed a draft prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Meanwhile, the company has a draft prospectus for an offering on the TASE.
BiolineRX chairman Dr. Aharon Schwartz told "Globes" today, "BiolineRX's financial situation is known. We have enough cash to get through 2010, but we'd be happy to have more. It's hard for us to know what our revenue will be in 2010, except from the Ikaria deal."
Schwartz said that the company therefore has a number of options for raising capital. "We've neither accelerated nor slowed down talks with Nasdaq underwriters, which have already been going on for years."
BiolineRX's flagship product is BL-1040, a heart muscle stabilizing drug, which it is hoped will become a breakthrough treatment for preventing further heart damage following a heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 3, 2009
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