Description of Business

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2018

Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Description of Business

Description of the Business

NanoString Technologies, Inc. (the “Company”) was incorporated in the state of Delaware on June 20, 2003. The Company’s headquarters is located in Seattle, Washington. The Company’s technology enables direct detection, identification and quantification of individual target molecules in a biological sample by attaching a unique color coded fluorescent reporter to each target molecule of interest. The Company markets its proprietary nCounter Analysis System, consisting of instruments and consumables, including its Prosigna Breast Cancer Assay, to academic, government, biopharmaceutical and clinical laboratory customers. In addition, the Company is collaborating with biopharmaceutical companies to develop companion diagnostic tests for various cancer therapies.

The Company has incurred losses to date and expects to incur additional losses for the foreseeable future. The Company continues to invest the majority of its resources in the development and growth of its business, including significant investments in new product development and sales and marketing efforts. The Company’s activities have been financed primarily through the sale of equity securities and incurrence of indebtedness, cash received by the Company pursuant to certain product development collaborations, and, to a lesser extent, through the incurrence of capital leases and other borrowings.

In January 2018, the Company entered into a Sales Agreement with a sales agent to sell shares of the Company's common stock through an “at the market” equity offering program for up to $40.0 million in gross cash proceeds. The Sales Agreement allows the Company to set the parameters for the sale of shares, including the number of shares to be issued, the time period during which sales are requested to be made, limits on the number of shares that may be sold in any one trading day and a minimum price below which sales may not be made. Under the terms of the Sales Agreement, commission expenses to the sales agent will be 3% of the gross sales price per share sold through the sales agent. The Sales Agreement shall automatically terminate upon the issuance and sale of shares that provide gross proceeds of $40.0 million and may be terminated earlier by either the Company or the sales agent upon five days’ notice.

In July 2018, the Company completed an underwritten public offering of 4,600,000 shares of common stock, including the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase 600,000 additional shares of common stock in August 2018, for total gross proceeds of $57.5 million. After underwriter’s commissions and other expenses of the offering, the Company’s aggregate net proceeds were approximately $53.8 million.