Biolex files for $70 million IPO

Posted Tuesday, August 14, 2007

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Pittsboro, NC — Biol ex Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $70 million in an initial public offering of stock.

Biolex has applied for listing on Nasdaq under the symbol BLEX. The company said its pricing of the offering was done to calculate its filing fee and may change.

Biolex’s lead product, Locteron, is a treatment for hepatitis C and is in mid-stage clinical trials. It has two other products moving toward clinical trials, one designed to get rid of blood clots and another for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s B-cell lymphoma.

The company says it will use the IPO proceeds to finance clinical trials, preclinical tests, general purposes and working capital.

Biolex closed an overesubscribed $30 million C round in May and has raised nearly $100 million in venture backing since its founding in 1997. Investors include Intersouth Partners, Easton Capital, JP Morgan Securities, Investor Growth Capital, Quaker BioVentures, Polaris Venture Partners, Mitsui& Co. Venture Partners, Johnson & Johnson development Corporation and Dow Venture Capital.

The company uses the aquatic plant Lemna, also known as duckweed, in a unique proprietary LEX system production process.

Biolex CEO Jan Turek was named “Entrepreneur of hte Year,” in the life sciences category of Ernst & Young’s annual competition in the Carolinas earlier this year.