Body of work: Long-awaited IPO nears for promising biotech firm

From surgical training to high school dissection labs, SynDaver has charted a clear-cut course for its synthetic human and animal products. A payoff for investors could be in the offing.

By Brian Hartz
| 6:00 a.m. January 24, 2020
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Mark Wemple. Over the past 15 years, SynDaver founder and CEO Dr. Christoper Sakezles has guided the biotech firm to the brink of what could be a lucrative IPO.

Strategies

SynDaver, the Tampa biotech firm that makes incredibly lifelike artificial humans and animals — most recently a fake frog used in biology class dissections — has long talked of going public. More than four years ago, 2018 was touted as the year Wall Street would welcome it to the party.

The company has since waited it out, especially while the IPO market cooled. More recently, in a signal an IPO could finally be on the horizon, the company has increased its sales team, tripling it from seven to 21 people in the fourth quarter of 2019. It also announced plans to add 15 more reps in the first quarter of 2020.