Next week is shaping up as a blockbuster time for initial public offerings, with deals from Airbnb and DoorDash expected. Now add Certara, a provider of biosimulation software, to the list of companies making their public market debut.
Certara on Thursday set terms for its initial public offering, which could raise as much as $536.6 million. The Princeton, N.J., technology company is selling 24,390,000 shares at $19 to $22 each.
Certara is expected to price its deal next Thursday, Dec. 10, and trade the next day, two people familiar with the situation said. The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq market under the ticker CERT.
Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America Securities are the lead underwriters on the deal.
Airbnb, the home sharing company, and DoorDash, the food delivery service, are also expected to price their deals and trade next week. C3.ai, PubMatic, and Hydrofarm Holdings Group are on tap to trade next week as well.
Certara uses biosimulation software to create virtual trials that use virtual patients to predict how drugs behave in different people. Its platform is used by more than 1,600 biopharmaceutical companies and academic institutions across 60 countries, including all of the top 35 biopharmaceutical companies, its prospectus said.
Biosimulation software became more important after the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted clinical trials, which often use human test subjects, across the world in 2020.
For example, the coronavirus outbreak caused Pfizer (ticker:PFE) in March to delay patient recruitment in new and ongoing global trials, Reuters reported. Covid-19 is expected to drive adoption of software to lessen the disruption of future trials.
Certara is profitable. The company reported $5 million in income for the nine months ended Sept. 30 from a loss of $2.9 million in losses for the period in 2019.
Revenue rose nearly 16%, to $178.9 million, for the nine months ended Sept. 30. Total debt stood at $379.2 million as of Sept. 30. The start-up employs 899 people.
The IPO comes roughly three years since Certara was sold to EQT (EQT.Sweden). The Swedish private-equity firm acquired Certara in 2017 from Arsenal Capital
Partners for $850 million. EQT is expected to own about 52% of Certara after the IPO, while Arsenal will have 7.3%, the prospectus said.
Source: Barrons
