By Frank Vinluan – June 30, 2016
Xconomy Raleigh-Durham — Bioventus, a company that develops treatments that harness the body’s own biology to help bones heal, is joining the list of life science firms lining up to go public.
The Durham, NC-based biotech company filed paperwork on Thursday for a $150 million initial public offering to raise funds to pay off debt. That dollar figure is a placeholder and will likely change as Bioventus determines how many shares it will sell and at what price. When the company does go public, it expects its stock will trade on the Nasdaq under the stock symbol “BIOV.”
The company that is now Bioventus was the biologics and clinical therapies division of London-based medical technology company Smith & Nephew (NYSE: SNN). In 2012, Smith & Nephew teamed up with healthcare investment firm Essex Woodlands to form a joint venture that transferred much of Smith & Nephew’s Durham-based biologics unit to a new company bringing biological approaches to orthopedic treatments. Essex Woodlands owned the majority stake in the venture, named Bioventus, which continued to operate from Durham.
Bioventus’ competitors in orthobiologics include Sanofi (NYSE: SNY); DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ); and Warsaw, IN-based Zimmer Biomet (NYSE:ZBH). In the filing, Bioventus says it believes it is the only company focused exclusively on orthobiologics that has annual sales topping $100 million. In 2015, Bioventus reported $253.7 million in revenue, up 4.4 percent compared to 2014, according to the filing. But the company’s net loss widened from $11.3 million in 2014 to $31.9 million in 2015. Bioventus breaks out its business into four divisions: active healing therapies—U.S.; active healing therapies—international; surgical; and bone morphogenetic protein. The largest of these units is its active healing therapies—U.S., accounting for $192 million in 2015 revenue. Research and development spending in 2015 totaled $14.7 million, up 54.7 percent from 2014.
