The first life sciences IPO of the year was greeted with restrained enthusiasm as Renewable Energy Group raised $72 million in an initial public offering, slashing the share price by 29 percent to get the deal done. The Iowa-based company is the largest producer of biodiesel in the United States.

Renewable Energy Group sold 7.2 million shares at $10 per share, well-below its target range of $13 to $15 per share. It began trading on the Nasdaq under the REGI ticker. UBS and Piper Jaffray served as joint book-running managers, while Stifel, Nicolaus & Company and Canaccord Genuity acted as co-managers. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to 1.08 milllion additional shares to cover over-allotments, if any.

Markets have not been very kind to life sciences IPOs in recent times. The performance of the class of 2011 was down 27 percent from their initial offering price at the end of 2011. Markets have been even more brutal for biorenewables IPOs. The five biorenewables companies that have gone public in the past two years have underperformed the class as a whole. As of January 19, their average share price was 44 percent below their initial offering price.

Venture and strategic investors, however, still seem bullish about biorenewables, pumping $823 million of new capital into private companies and $502 million into the three IPOs in 2011.

Of the 22 U.S. life science companies that have filed registration statements and are currently in the queue, nine of them are in the biorenewables sector. It is expected that many will take the leap to go public whether the market turns favorable or not. Many of these companies need the cash to take the next step and commercialize their technologies, either through public markets or through strategic partnerships that often include an equity investment.

Joule Unlimited closed a $70 million third round of funding to support its aggressive timeline to commercialization, bringing the total it has raised to more than $110 million. The Massachusetts-based company says it can make liquid fuel from the sun using its biorenewable technology that directly and continuously converts sunlight and waste CO2 to infrastructure-ready diesel, ethanol, or commodity chemicals without dependence on biomass feedstocks or downstream processing.

The funding will be put towards the build-out and operation of a Joule demonstration facility located in Hobbs, New Mexico and slated for commissioning in the summer of 2012. The facility will test its system at incrementally larger scales, with the potential to expand to 1,000 acres for initial commercial production. Proceeds from the round will also support Joule's global expansion plans and on-going technology development.

“Joule is among the most innovative and transformative companies to have emerged from our VentureLabs unit, encompassing numerous breakthroughs in a highly-efficient, scalable process that represents a new paradigm for liquid fuel production,” says Noubar Afeyan, founder and chairman of Joule and managing partner and CEO of Flagship Ventures. “Joule has now successfully moved beyond the research phase to prove the industrial viability of its approach, with a clear path to global implementation.”