ZS Pharma Ends Texas Biotech IPO Dry Spell With $86M Pitch
Summary
That changed this past week, when ZS Pharma, a suburban Fort Worth, TX, biotech, revealed plans to go public and raise as much as $86 million from investors.I pinged our friends at BioHouston, which works to boost the life sciences ecosystem not only in the Bayou City, but throughout the state, and they pointed to research at the Trout Group, which shows a string of five Texas biotech IPOs—each of which took place 14 years ago.And Lexicon, based in suburban Houston, slashed half of its workforce in January to conserve cash to take a diabetes drug prospect into Phase 3 trials.In March, the company raised $55 million in a private round to help finance late-stage studies for ZS-9 and prep to file new drug applications with the FDA and the European Medicines Agency by early 2015.ZS Pharma initially filed with regulatory authorities last month, reporting that JP Morgan and Credit Suisse will lead the deal jointly.