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Technology and the Internet

Gen-Probe Inc., a manufacturer of DNA-probe diagnostic...

By CHRIS KRAUL
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Gen-Probe Inc., a manufacturer of DNA-probe diagnostic kits used to detect infectious diseases, has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public stock offering that may raise up to $27.5 million.

Founded by former Hybritech Inc. executives in 1983, Gen-Probe plans to sell 2.5 million newly issued shares at between $9 and $11 per share, the company said Friday. Proceeds will be used to fund research and development, working capital and to expand marketing and manufacturing.

Gen-Probe, which began shipping its first products in mid-1986, reported a net loss of $4.6 million on revenues of $2.4 million for fiscal 1986 ended Dec. 31. For the six months ended June 30, the company lost $3.9 million on sales of $2 million. There are 127 employees, about double the total a year ago.

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Gen-Probe’s leading shareholder is Hybritech which, before the offering, owned 3.4 million shares, or 26% of those outstanding. The San Francisco-based venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers III owned 10.5% of the pre-offering shares outstanding.

Technology and the InternetBusiness
Chris Kraul

Chris Kraul covered South America for the Los Angeles Times from his base in Bogota, Colombia. He joined the paper in 1987 and was business editor of the San Diego edition until it closed in 1992. He then began covering the border and Mexican economies until his assignment to The Times’ Mexico City bureau in 2001. He reopened the paper’s Bogota bureau in 2006. He has also covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a graduate of the University of South Florida and also has been a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, San Diego Union-Tribune and the San Diego Business Journal.

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