Aldagen, the Durham biotechnology company that has had its IPO delayed repeatedly, has hired a new CEO.

The company announced today that Lyle A. Hohnke, a member of Aldagen's board since 2008, will succeed Tom Amick as CEO.

Hohnke was most recently a partner at Tullis Dickerson, a venture capital firm focused on health care. He also served as chairman and CEO of Diamond Animal Health.

"We appreciate the guidance Tom has given Aldagen over the years, and thank him for his many contributions that have brought the company to its current stage of development," said Richard Kent, chairman of Aldagen, in a release.

"Lyle's involvement with the company as a board member, and his significant fundraising and operational experience make him a great addition to Aldagen's executive management team."

A Durham biotechnology company is modifying its IPO plans in hopes of making a long-delayed debut on Wall Street.

Aldagen filed plans in October to raise $80.5 million by selling common stock via an initial public offering. Last week, the company filed an update with the Securities and Exchange Commission that complicates the proposed deal a bit.

Aldagen now wants to sell shares, as well as warrants to purchase shares in the future and units that consist of one share and one warrant (worth half a share each). Each one would trade on the Nasdaq under separate ticker symbols.

Confused yet? Actually, the move isn't all that unusual, especially for a smaller company trying to attract attention on Wall Street, said John E. Fitzgibbon Jr., publisher of IPOScoop.com in Edison, N.J.

SciQuest, a Cary company that helps universities, drug companies and other customers buy products and services online, filed plans this morning for an initial public offering of stock.

A successful IPO would mark an unusual milestone for the company that was founded in 1995. SciQuest first went public in 1999 during the height of the dot-com boom and its stock market value reached nearly $1 billion. But its shares tanked not long after its Wall Street debut when tech stocks slumped.

In 2004, with a new business model and a new management team led by CEO Stephen J. Wiehe, left, the company went private when it was bought by several investment firms, including Trinity Ventures of California and Intersouth Partners of Durham.

Now, with rapidly increasing revenue and profitability, Wiehe will try again to win favor among Wall Street investors.

Filing IPO plans puts SciQuest in rare company: Only one other Triangle company, Durham-based Aldagen, which is developing drugs from stem cells, has officially filed plans for a U.S. IPO. Raleigh-based Lulu.com, an online book publisher, this month filed plans for an IPO in Canada.

Typically the Triangle, with its stable of fast-growing, venture-backed companies is where the state's IPO activity is concentrated.

Assuming the stock market stabilizes and demand for initial public offerings revives, some of the biggest IPOs could come from western North Carolina.

Late Friday, American Tire Distributors of Huntersville, just north of Charlotte, filed to raise as much as $230 million. The company, the largest distributor of replacement tires, expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ATD, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That filing follows one from Freedom Group, a Madison-based maker of firearms and ammunition, which first submitted plans with the SEC last fall to raise as much as $200 million in its IPO. That deal is still pending.

In the Triangle, only Aldagen, a small Durham company developing drugs from stem cells, has filed proposed IPO documents with the SEC, although several others are reportedly considering such a step.

The expected surge in IPOs has been put on hold.

The volatile stock market is dampening interest in initial public offerings of stock. Several companies have postponed IPOs recently and one, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals of Massachusetts, slashed its price to get a deal done today.

"The market's going to be very choosy," Scott Billeadeau, a money manager with Fifth Third Asset Management in Minneapolis, told Bloomberg News.

That doesn't bode well for private Triangle companies itching to make their debuts on Wall Street. That includes Aldagen, a small Durham drug company that filed IPO plans last year, and Motricity, a technology company that still employs about 100 people in Durham, which filed plans last month.

Here's a dose of good news for executives at Triangle companies eager to make Wall Street debuts in the new year: An analyst at Barclays expects U.S. IPO activity to more than triple to $50 billion in 2010.

So far this year, U.S. companies have sold $15.2 billion in shares through initial public offerings, Bloomberg reports. That's the lowest level since 2003, although IPO activity has accelerated as stocks surged during the past couple of months.

Looking ahead to 2010, assuming the stock market doesn't crash again, IPO interest should increase significantly, Barclays' Joe Castle said at an investor conference in New York today, Bloomberg reported. He expects "a large uptick in the U.S. in IPOs."

That would be a plus for companies like Durham-based Aldagen, which recently refiled plans for an IPO. And the Triangle is home to several other high-tech and biotech companies that want to raise money on Wall Street but have been hampered by the weak demand.

Talecris Biotherapeutics of Research Triangle Park took the plunge on Oct. 1, raising nearly $1 billion in one of the year's most successful IPOs. The company's shares have climbed back above their IPO price of $19, and traded today at $20.59, up $1.03.

Aldagen appears to be pushing ahead with its proposed IPO.

The small Durham company, which is developing drugs using stem cells, revived plans for an initial public offering of stock in late October. Aldagen scrapped an IPO in the fall of 2008 when the stock market slumped.

On Wednesday, the company filed some additional information with the Securities and Exchange Commission, signaling that the deal is moving along. Aldagen initially reported that investment banks Cowen and Co. and Wells Fargo Securities would underwrite the deal. The new filing adds two more underwriters: Needham & Co. and Boenning & Scattergood.

A small Durham company developing drugs using stem cells is reviving plans for an initial public offering of stock, hoping to take advantage of renewed Wall Street interest in biotechnology IPOs.

Aldagen scrapped previous IPO plans in Oct. 2008 when the stock market slumped and investors shunned risky, unprofitable companies. But stocks have surged since March and IPOs are returning to favor.

This morning Aldagen, which was founded in 2000 as StemCo Biomedical, refiled IPO plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing is missing some key details, such as the expected price range. But Aldagen indicated it expects to raise as much as $80.5 million and its shares to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol "ALDH."