When medical billing company Emdeon Inc. filed for an IPO on a Friday in September last year, there was naturally a celebratory feeling in the firm's Nashville office.

That Monday, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the Dow plunged more than 500 points, marking a pivotal point in the escalation of the financial crisis. Emdeon and its majority owner General Atlantic LLC withdrew the filing but decided to give it another go this year, raising $367 million in August (about $100 million less than it hoped for in 2008).

"We saw a window," says Tommy Lewis, senior vice president.

After a two-year drought, investment bankers expect an uptick in the IPO market overall, and for health care company deals, in particular. The environment earlier this year was dismal for initial public offerings. A number of companies dropped plans to go public. But things began to improve in the second half of the year. Friday's offering of Beijing-based Concord Medical Services Holdings marks the ninth health care IPO since August.

Bankers say 2010 will be a better—not banner—year for IPOs. And a big overhang, health care reform, should be decided in the next couple of months. Then investors can focus on fundamentals, such as the explosive growth of the health care industry. The government estimates U.S. health spending will almost double from $2.4 trillion in 2008 to $4.4 trillion in 2018.

"We're all getting older, we still get sick, people are getting their prescriptions filled," Lewis says.

Holding investors back in the short term is the unknown effect of reform.

"People don't know what the economic environment for many of these companies is going to be," says Brian Scullion, a health care investment banker for William Blair & Co. in Chicago. "It almost doesn't matter what the legislation is going to say, it's the uncertainty."

Overall, IPO filings are well below levels seen in 2007 and even in 2008. And those nine IPOs? Their shares are all down. But after a long drought, a pickup in activity is seen. The FTSE Renaissance IPO Composite Index is up 47 percent this year, compared with a 22 percent increase in the S&P 500.

"I'm not predicting the floodgates are opening," says Frank Stokes, managing director of Robert W. Baird & Co.'s health care group in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Seven other health care companies filed for IPOs since September, the majority being biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies. Four of them have revenue. Summit, New Jersey-based CorMedix, a biotech company working on treatments for cardiorenal disease, has no revenue or profit. It seeks to raise $18 million. On the other hand, Blackstone Group LP's hospital staffing firm Team Health has more than $1 billion in annual sales and profit is rising.

Other IPO filings include Anthera Pharmaceutical Inc., a California-based biotech firm developing anti-inflammatory drugs; North Carolina-based stem-cell company Aldagen; Atlanta-based biotech firm Alimera Sciences, which is focused on eye diseases and previously withdrew a planned IPO; San Diego biotech firm Trius Therapeutics, which is developing antibiotics; and Massachusetts-based Ironwood Pharmaceuticals.