Tucson-based Accelerate Diagnostics Inc. has launched a $45 million offering of stock-purchase rights to existing shareholders to help fund commercialization of its technology to rapidly detect and identify infectious pathogens.
The company, which moved its headquarters from Denver to Tucson in 2012, raised $20 million in a similar rights offering last summer.
The new offering will give shareholders fractional subscription rights at the rate of about one purchase right for each 15.6 shares of common stock. Each full right will allow a participating shareholder to buy one Accelerate share at $16.80 per share, the company said.
Accelerate’s stock closed Monday at $17.64, down $1.03 or about 5.5 percent, in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The Nasdaq was down about 1 percent overall on Monday.
As part of the latest offering, Accelerate has received a standby commitment from the Jack W. Schuler Living Trust and the Schuler Family Foundation to purchase any shares of common stock that are not subscribed for by stockholders.
The company said the purpose of the rights offering is to raise equity capital “in a cost-effective manner that gives all of the company’s existing stockholders the opportunity to participate on a pro rata basis.”
The earlier rights offering was oversubscribed, with 75 percent of eligible shareholders participating and 69 percent of the rights snapped up by company directors, the company said after completing the offering in August. In that offering, shareholders were given similar fractional subscription rights to buy shares at $8.04 per share.
Accelerate, which changed its name from Accler8 Technology Corp. shortly after moving to Tucson in 2012, is working to develop a rapid infection-detection testing system.
Accelerate says its patented, automated technology can identify bacteria in samples such as blood in hours — instead of the days it takes labs to culture and analyze specimens by hand — and can detect drug resistance in a specific bacteria strain.
The company has said it is working toward a goal of completing development of a market-ready prototype of its BACcel infection-detection system by 2015.
Accelerate was wooed to Tucson with the help of some $2.4 million in conditional financial incentives. In 2012, the company moved into a space at the Herbert K. Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road, with cut-rate rent as part of an incentive package offered by Pima County.
The company already has hired more than 50 people and could reach several hundred, officials say.
The company, which moved its headquarters from Denver to Tucson in 2012, raised $20 million in a similar rights offering last summer.
The new offering will give shareholders fractional subscription rights at the rate of about one purchase right for each 15.6 shares of common stock. Each full right will allow a participating shareholder to buy one Accelerate share at $16.80 per share, the company said.
Accelerate’s stock closed Monday at $17.64, down $1.03 or about 5.5 percent, in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The Nasdaq was down about 1 percent overall on Monday.
As part of the latest offering, Accelerate has received a standby commitment from the Jack W. Schuler Living Trust and the Schuler Family Foundation to purchase any shares of common stock that are not subscribed for by stockholders.
The company said the purpose of the rights offering is to raise equity capital “in a cost-effective manner that gives all of the company’s existing stockholders the opportunity to participate on a pro rata basis.”
The earlier rights offering was oversubscribed, with 75 percent of eligible shareholders participating and 69 percent of the rights snapped up by company directors, the company said after completing the offering in August. In that offering, shareholders were given similar fractional subscription rights to buy shares at $8.04 per share.
Accelerate, which changed its name from Accler8 Technology Corp. shortly after moving to Tucson in 2012, is working to develop a rapid infection-detection testing system.
Accelerate says its patented, automated technology can identify bacteria in samples such as blood in hours — instead of the days it takes labs to culture and analyze specimens by hand — and can detect drug resistance in a specific bacteria strain.
The company has said it is working toward a goal of completing development of a market-ready prototype of its BACcel infection-detection system by 2015.
Accelerate was wooed to Tucson with the help of some $2.4 million in conditional financial incentives. In 2012, the company moved into a space at the Herbert K. Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road, with cut-rate rent as part of an incentive package offered by Pima County.
The company already has hired more than 50 people and could reach several hundred, officials say.