Irvine firm drops effort to go public

February 5th, 2009, 12:00 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Jan Norman, small-business columnist

TherOx Inc., an Irvine company that is developing treatments for severe heart attack patients, has halted its attempt to go public.

“We filed our registration statement (for an initial public offering) last September to be ready to go public assuming that the public markets would improve. But they further deteriorated,” said TherOx President and Chief Executive Kevin Larkin. “IPOs are nonexistent right now.”

TherOx was the only local company braving a terrible IPO market.

Only six venture-backed U.S. companies managed to go public in all of 2008, compared to 86 in 2007, according to the National Venture Capital Association. Click here to read more.

The association called this lack of exit for investors “a capital markets crisis for the start-up community” that accounts for most new jobs and much of the nation’s recent economic growth.

California leads the nation in companies waiting to go public. Click here to see the chart.

TherOx had hoped the IPO would raise $100 million. Since 1995, it has raised $120 million from venture capitalists including $25 million in 2008.

“We’re lucky that we don’t need money in the short term,” Larkin said.”We have had strong support from our private investors. We have already talked to them about (delaying the IPO), and they are willing to continue to support us.”

TherOx is developing what it calls SuperSaturated Oxygen Therapy as a treatment following successful balloon angioplasty surgery that “salvages the heart muscle in heart attack patients,” Larkin said.

The company is hopeful the same therapy will work on other body parts. It is awaiting its first FDA approval and does not have revenues.

TherOx will eventually go public after the markets stabilize, possibly by the end of 2009 or early 2010, Larkin said.