Homegrown Tucson biotech company HTG Molecular Diagnostics Inc. went public on Wednesday in an initial public offering priced at $14 per share, closing at $13.77 in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq’s Global Market.
HTG, which trades under the ticker symbol “HTGM,” announced its pricing between the initial estimate of $13 to $15, in an offering intended to raise about $60 million. Its shares began falling shortly after the opening bell and slumped below $12 much of the day before recovering just before the close. The Nasdaq overall was down about a half-percent on Wednesday.
HTG had offered 3.6 million shares; its first-day trading volume was 674,374 shares.
The company says its patented chemistry technology, HTG Edge, can rapidly and simultaneously profile thousands of molecular targets from samples a fraction of the size required by current technologies.
Customers such as drug companies, academic institutions and molecular labs use HTG’s tests for translational research, drug development and molecular diagnostics. HTG’s current products are for research only, with use for patient diagnostics still subject to approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
HTG employed 77 people at the end of 2014, according to regulatory filings.
Tucson is home to just a handful of publicly traded companies, and only two trade on major U.S. exchanges — social-services provider Providence Service Corp. and Accelerate Diagnostics Inc., a startup that has developed a bacterial detection and identification system. Both trade on the Nasdaq.
UNS Energy Corp., parent of Tucson Electric Power Co., was traded on the New York Stock Exchange until it was acquired last year by Canadian utilities giant Fortis Inc.
