By Randall Osborne

West Coast Editor

Add to the recent initial public offering (IPO) success stories Genomica Corp., which sold 6.44 million shares at $19 each to raise $122.36 million, beating its original filing estimate and reaching even beyond the company's own, recently revised expectations.

Boulder, Colo.-based Genomica first said it planned to offer 6 million shares at $15 to $17 each. At the mid-range of $16, that offering would have raised $96 million. Then, earlier this month, Genomica filed a revision, cutting the number of shares to 5 million, while upping the price range to $16 to $18 per share, which would have meant $85 million at the mid-range $17 price. (See BioWorld Today, March 16, 2000, p. 1.)

After the offering, the company has 22.42 million shares outstanding.

The IPO filing came less than a week after the company raised $15 million in a private placement of Series C preferred stock. Before that, the company had garnered more than $21.1 million in equity financing since opening its doors in 1996. (See BioWorld Today, March 15, 2000, p. 1.)

Genomica said it will use the proceeds to advance Discovery Manager, a database system developed over the past 15 years that can be filled with genomic data from the users' own research and elsewhere, allowing users to access, store, manipulate, analyze, annotate and integrate genomic data from a variety of sources

Among the company's customers are Clingenix Inc., of San Carlos, Calif.; Oxagen Ltd., of Abingdon, UK; Biognosis Inc., of Bethesda, Md.; Glaxo Wellcome plc, of London; and the National Cancer Institute. Genomica also is collaborating with PE Biosystems Group, of Foster City, Calif., to develop software products for drug discovery purposes.

The company recorded revenue of $766,000 for the six months ended June 30, with a net loss of $13.38 million for the period, and it had $14 million in cash and cash equivalents.

Lead underwriter for the offering was CIBC World Markets. Also acting as representatives of the underwriters are Dain Rauscher Inc. and Prudential Securities Inc. Genomica is offering underwriters an additional 966,000 shares in overallotments.

The company's stock (NASDAQ:GNOM) closed Friday at $19.437, up 43.75 cents.