Agendia, a Netherlands-headquartered breast cancer diagnostics technology provider that counts insurance company Axa and pharmaceutical firms Debiopharm and Norgine as backers, filed for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market on Thursday.
Founded in 2003, Agendia developed two diagnostics systems, MammaPrint and Blueprint, designed respectively to assess the risk of a patient’s cancer recurring and to understand the underlying genetic reasons behind the growth of a tumour.
The company has filed to raise up to $75m and plans to use the IPO proceeds to scale its commercial activities, grow its sales and marketing teams, accelerate research and development efforts and pay down existing debt.
Axa had invested in the company’s 2004 series A round through its Axa Private Equity Venture Funds unit. The size of the round was undisclosed but it included Gilde Investment Management and Global Life Science Ventures.
Van Herk Group and Gilde Healthcare subsequently invested an undisclosed amount in Agendia in 2006 and participated in a $34m series D round in 2007 alongside financial services firm ING and Global Life Science Ventures.
Agendia had raised $23m in a 2009 series E round, half of which was provided by an unnamed family office, with two private investors putting in $1m each and the rest coming from unnamed existing backers.
Debiopharm led a $65m series F round for Agendia in 2012 that included ING’s Corporate Investments subsidiary, Colruyt family office Korys, Gilde Healthcare Partners, Van Herk Group and Breedinvest, before it added $35m from funds managed by Athyrium Capital Management in 2018.
Norgine’s corporate venturing arm Norgine Ventures is among Agendia’s largest shareholders, as are Athyrium Opportunities III Acquisition, Korys Investments, Stichting Lichfield and Hartwig Houdstermaatschappij. Their sizes of their individual stakes have not been revealed.
Goldman Sachs, Stifel Nicolaus, Citigroup Global Markets and Cowen and Company have been appointed underwriters for the offering.
