Biodesix stock falls 28% on debut,

Biodesix Inc. (Nasdaq: BDSX) shares fell more than a quarter in its first day as a public company amid a difficult day for markets overall.

The lung cancer diagnostics company began trading at $18 as of market open, against its prior expectations of trading between $17 and $19 per share, but closed the day at $12.81 for a total loss of 28.8% on the day.

Stocks were broadly down Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 935 points or 3.4%, the S&P 500 Index down 95 points or 2.8% and the Nasdaq Composite down 418 points or 3.6%.

All of those were attributed to fears of rising COVID-19 cases across the globe, which also affects Biodesix.

While the company primarily develops assays to determine if a patient’s lung cancer is driven by a genetic abnormality, it has spent much of the year pivoting toward creating and processing COVID19 tests.

However, the company previously said in securities filings that it has been receiving fewer tumor samples this year and that its pharmaceutical customers are struggling to recruit new patients into clinical trials, likely due to the massive shift in health care to address the pandemic.

The company, which made known its intentions to go public this month, has earmarked 4.16 million shares to be available to the public. Between those public shares and 625,000 additional shares earmarked as warrants for the IPO’S underwriters, the company could gain up to $91 million in proceeds from going public.

The company expected to have 26.42 million shares outstanding after the offering when the approximately 4 million public shares are combined with an additional 21.93 million shares generated from converting privately held stock and debt notes. If traded at the expected IPO price, that would place the company’s market capitalization at between $449.15 million and just under $500.2 million.

Biodesix’s public offering officially ends Friday.