Masimo Files for Stock Offering

Masimo Corp., an Irvine maker of noninvasive patient monitoring systems, said it will seek to raise as much as $69 million in an initial public stock offering.

The firm plans to use proceeds from the offering to buy equipment, boost sales and marketing and make acquisitions, according to a document filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Masimo did not disclose a target price or the number of shares it plans to offer.

More than 30 patient-monitoring companies around the world have licensed Masimo’s products. The firm’s technology measures pulse rates and oxygen levels in the blood. It holds 59 patents and has 103 pending.

The company recently raised $10 million in a private offering to finance increased production of its latest product, a hand-held pulse-and-blood monitor called Radical, the company said in its filing.

Masimo has picked a good time to go public, said Tom Madden of IPO Monitor. “The IPO market seems to be heating up,” he said.

Tom Taulli, a stock analyst with Internet.com, a Connecticut data firm, said it’s difficult to predict how Masimo would fare because so few medical-device companies have gone public recently.

Masimo’s last attempt to go public faltered. Four years ago, it hoped to raise $30 million but ran into a cooling market for health-care stocks.

The firm has lost $58.5 million since its 1989 founding. Sales jumped 91% to $5.3 million for the first six months this year, but the firm lost about $6.7 million in the period.

Masimo executives declined to comment, citing the “quiet period” required by the SEC when such filings are made.

Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, Chase H&Q; and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray are the underwriters. Masimo would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol MSMO.