Synthetic biology company Intrexon (NYSE:XON) made its debut as a public company raising $160 million in an initial public stock offering Thursday.
The company sold 10 million shares at $16 per share, the high end of the $14 to $16 per share range that the company had previously set. Investors interest in the offering was strong as shares shot up more than 50 percent in midday trading going as high as $27 per share.
J.P. Morgan and Barclays are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Griffin Securities and Mizuho Securities are co-managers.
Germantown, Md.-based Intrexon has agbiotech operations in Research Triangle Park through its 2011 acquisition of Agarigen, a Research Triangle Park company researching the use of mushrooms to make proteins used in vaccines and medicines. Intrexon continues to maintain R&D labs in the Park.
Intrexon research focuses on synthetic biology, a field where biological molecules are engineered to control activity in or around cells. The technology is being researched for a number of health care applications, including new treatments for cancer. Intrexon’s Carolina connections are through acquisitions made in recent years. Besides the Agarigen acquisition in 2011, the company that year also acquired Immunologix, a company spun out of the Medical University of South Carolina that developed an antibodies platform technology.
Intrexon said proceeds from the IPO would be used for R&D as well as finding more partners that could use its synthetic biology technology in a range of applications.
