Lipoxen Plc, a drug spin-out company from the University of London's School of Pharmacy, said it has raised £3.78 million from a placing of 28 million shares for hiring news staff for preclinical trials to treat diabetes, Pneumococcal infections, and hepatitis C.
Lipoxen sold its shares to institutional investors at 13.5 pence per share, valuing the company at about £14 million. The drug and vaccine delivery company said that the funding would last it through to mid 2007, by which time it hoped to have received human data on its patented technologies
“We need to bring on additional scientists and staff and also to bolster the senior management team and support the ongoing drive to get into the clinic,” said Scott Maguire, the chief executive of Lipoxen, in an interview. “We now have a number of developmental and pre-clinical programmes in place, 15 of them.”
Lipoxen's portfolio of drugs includes a candidate designed to improve the therapy of diabetics by reducing the frequency that patients need to inject insulin. Other product candidates are designed to improve the therapy and reduce the costs for patients being treated for kidney failure, hepatitis C and cancer.
According to an estimate by World Generics Market in August 2004, the protein and peptide market in which Lipoxen operates was valued at $30 billion in 2003, and is expected to grow to $59 billion by 2010. The vaccines market was valued at $9 billion in 2001 and is growing at 12 per cent per year, the company said.
Lipoxen was taken over by AIM-listed Greenchip Investments PLC in December, in an all-share deal. Greenchip paid for Lipoxen with 67 million of its new shares. The company was founded in 1997 by Gregory Gregoriadis, a professor at theIts shares, which were suspended trading in December and resumed trading today, were unchanged at 21.5 pence.
“We sold the shares at 13.5 pence (per share) and we opened at 21.5 pence so I think 60 percent of return is a pretty good result,” said Maguire
Canaccord Adams Ltd. acts as the broker to the company while Grant Thornton Corporate Finance acts as the company's nominated adviser.
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