Placing
Southampton University spin-out Synairgen plc is raising £6.35 million in a placing with institutional investors of 29.5 million shares. The placing will finance two Phase IIa proof of concept studies of inhaled interferon beta in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Synairgen was spun out of Southampton University in 2002 by Professors Stephen Holgate, Donna Davies and Ratko Djukanovic, with funding from the technology commercialisation firm IP Group plc.
Holgate made the discovery that the reason why asthmatics are likely to suffer severe attacks when they catch a common cold is that they have a weakened immune response that means they cannot generate interferon beta within the epithelium to enable them to resist the rhinovirus.
The company has since established that it can deliver inhaled interferon beta directly to the lungs, prompting an immune response, without the drug getting elsewhere in the body.
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