Codexis Inc., a Redwood City, CA biotech company, filed a registration statement on Monday for an initial public offering to raise up to $100 million.

Codexis develops “biocatalysts that make industrial processes faster, cleaner and more efficient than current processes.”  The company focuses on the conversion of renewable resources into biofuels and pharmaceuticals. It partners with Shell, Merck, Pfizer and Teva. Pfizer uses Codexis’s technology to produce Lipitor® (for which Codexis won the EPA Green Chemistry Award in 2006).

This is not the first time Codexis entered into the IPO world. The company previously filed an IPO in September 2008. Unfortunately for Codexis, that was two weeks before Lehman Brothers filed its bankruptcy petition. Ultimately, that 2008 filing was withdrawn.   At the time of of that first filing, some analysts speculated that the company’s investors were looking for assistance in funding its “high burn rate” .   In September 2008, Codexis had an accumulated deficit of $94 million; the current registration statement shows accumulated losses, as of Spetember 2009, at $154.4 million. See  Codexis S-1 Registration Statement, p.12. And, the company expects “to incur losses and negative cash flow from operating activities for the foreseeable future.” See Codexis S-1, p.12.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Russell Gold notes, “Biofuels investing is not for the faint of heart.”

Codexis shares will trade on NASDAQ with the symbol “CDXS.”
For an overview of Codexis, here is a video interview with Allan Shaw, CEO of Codexis

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5u3qPj8MNg

Further reading:

http://www.codexis.com/press_releases/view/pr_1262040077

http://www.codexis.com/company

http://cleanenergysector.com/2009/12/codexis-files-for-ipo-again/

http://www.epa.gov/gcc/pubs/pgcc/winners/grca06.html

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Copyright 2009 — K.J.Collins