QuantaMatrix is targeting $17.80 to $22.30 per share under a regulation permitting a listing on the basis of growth and technology potential.
QuantaMatrix, a South Korea-based sepsis diagnostics spinout of Seoul National University, hopes to raise as much as KRW85.4bn ($71.8m) from its forthcoming listing with a target price range of $17.80 to $22.30, the Korea Herald reported on Thursday.
Book-building for institutional investors will commence on September 21 or 22 with the retail subscription window to follow from September 25 to 28.
Kwon Sung-hoon, chief executive of QuantaMatrix, told the Korea Herald the IPO would exploit a special regulation on the Korea Exchange enabling businesses to list on the basis of its technological and growth potential.
Founded in 2010, QuantaMatrix has built a rapid diagnostic kit for use in clinical settings to identify and treat patients at risk of developing sepsis, a complication from which organ failure can potentially arise due to harmful microorganisms in the blood.
Sepsis has become more commonplace with increased resistance to antibiotics, putting more patients in critical care at risk.
QuantaMatrix’s test, dubbed Direct Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test (dRast), is designed to perform up to 15 blood tests within four to six hours to help discern which antibiotics would most effectively destroy the bacteria species in the patient’s bloodstream.
The technology is contained on a microfluidic chip equipped to detect the body’s systemic inflammatory response and observe bacterial growth patterns in real-time.
Seoul National University has been using dRast at its hospital system under a commercial licence since late 2019, and the technology is currently being evaluated for use by four South Korean general hospitals.
Proceeds from the IPO will help QuantaMatrix pursue product development with the aim of delivering new tests exploiting blood bacterial diagnostics for microbiology, molecular biology and immunoassay applications.
QuantaMatrix will also aim to secure a foothold in overseas markets, recruiting more staff with a view to entering 10 European countries: France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The spinout additionally plans to build a factory in the US with the aim of securing approval from national medicines regulatory Food and Drug Administration by 2022, and will also construct a manufacturing plant in China.
It appears QuantaMatrix is still to publish its prospectus and has not disclosed details of earlier equity funding.