Idec Pharmaceuticals Plans 1st Public Offering

Idec Pharmaceuticals, a La Jolla-based biotechnology company that is developing products to treat various life-threatening diseases, will seek up to $37.5 million in an initial public offering, the company said Tuesday.

Idec, a privately held company with four products in human clinical testing, has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering of 2.5 million shares at an initial offering price of between $13 and $15 a share.

“Their offering doesn’t surprise me,” said Jim McCamant, editor of the San Francisco-based Medical Technology stock letter. Idec is one of several biotech firms hoping that the market continues to be receptive to biotech stock issues, McCamant said.

“Since June, a number of companies have (gone public and) received a big premium over their filing price,” McCamant said. “But you never know, though, what might happen between the time that they file and the time they actually go to market. If we get tank battles in the streets (of Moscow) tomorrow morning, the market might . . . push Idec (far below) their filing price.”

Idec’s products are aimed at a number of diseases, including cancers such as lymphomas, leukemias, malignant melanoma, HIV infection and autoimmune disorders.

Zenyaku Kogyo Co. Ltd. of Japan in June agreed to invest $9.5 million in Idec in return for certain product rights and a minority investment position. In 1990, the Institute of Immunology Co. Ltd., a privately held, Tokyo-based company, invested $23 million in Idec in return for rights to market several Idec products in several Asian countries.

Idec has about 100 employees. About half of them work in San Diego and the rest in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ivor Royston, a co-founder of Hybritech, San Diego’s most successful biotech company, also was a co-founder of Idec.