Sale
Drug delivery specialist pSivida Ltd of Perth, Australia, has sold off its subsidiary SiNutria Ltd, to Intrinsiq Materials, the UK venture capital company funded by the technology commercialisation company QinetiQ Group plc, pSivida’s founder and second largest shareholder.
pSiNutria was set up in December 2005 to develop applications of the pSivida’s BioSilicon drug delivery technology for the food industry. Intrinsiq will make a series of payments totaling $1.23m in the first year following the closing this transaction and will pay royalty payments of at least $3.95m over the next 6 years, $500,000 of which will be payable 18 months after the closing. pSivida retains all rights to BioSilicon outside the food science arena.
BioSilicon is a nanostructured form of silicon, which was developed by QinetiQ. The material has a honeycomb structure, enabling it to carry a large drug payload, and despite retaining the electrical properties of normal silicon, is biodegradable.
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