Bioresin maker Metabolix Inc. hopes to raise almost $90 million through an initial public offering.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Metabolix filed for the IPO July 14 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing listed a maximum aggregate amount of about $86.3 million, but did not include a per-share price.
In a phone interview, Metabolix President and Chief Executive Officer James Barber said the IPO should take place by year's end.
Metabolix ``is at the point of commercializing its first platform'' with agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. Decatur, Ill.-based ADM, already a Metabolix investor, will put $7.5 million in the IPO, the filing said.
The plant will be able to produce 100 million pounds of polyhydroxyalkanoate per year and should be operational by mid-2008. Metabolix describes PHA as ``the first commercially viable, 100 percent organic plastic.'' The firm currently operates a pilot-scale plant at an undisclosed site.
Metabolix officials have said the firm is exploring ways to use switch grass, a common wild grass that grows in many areas of the Midwest, as a PHA feedstock. The product currently is based on corn sugar and is made through microbial fermentation. It sells for between $1.50 and $2 per pound. Metabolix posted a $7.6 million loss in 2005 on sales of about $2.8 million.