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AIM listing raises £3.78 million (before expenses) to drive drugs and vaccines with prolonged active life through preclinical trials.
London UK, 17 January 2006. Lipoxen plc (AIM: LPX) (formerly known as Greenchip Investments plc.) listed on AIM today following the completion of the acquisition of Lipoxen Technologies Ltd, the drug and vaccine delivery company. Lipoxen raised £3.78 million (before expenses) by placing 28,000,000 ordinary shares at a price of 13.5 pence per share. Following this placing, there are a total of 97,412,832 ordinary shares in issue. The AIM listing will enable Lipoxen to proceed with preclinical trials on a series of currently marketed drugs and vaccines which have been modified, using the company’s proprietary drug delivery technology, to prolong activity and improve efficacy. The funding will be used to drive existing product candidates through preclinical trials.
Lipoxen’s portfolio of drugs aim to increase the therapeutic value and reduce the dosage frequency for patients. One product candidate is designed to significantly improve the therapy of diabetics by reducing the frequency that patients need to inject insulin. Another candidate, a pneumococcal vaccine similar to Prevnar, marketed by Wyeth, and considered to be the first billion dollar vaccine, may be improved to double the bacterial strain’s coverage or efficacy of the vaccine currently on the market. Pneumococcal infections kill more people in the US than all other vaccine-preventable diseases combined (Source: Department of Health and Human Services). Further product candidates are designed to considerably improve the therapy and reduce the costs for patients being treated for kidney failure, hepatitis C and cancer.
Lipoxen has collaboration agreements in place to develop these potential blockbuster product candidates with Baxter Healthcare, National Biotechnologies OAO and three of the world’s largest biotechnology companies. Agreements are also in place with one of the world’s largest generics companies and the world’s largest vaccines manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India.
The protein and peptide market in which Lipoxen operates was valued at $30bn in 2003 and is expected to grow to $59bn by 2010 (World Generics Market, Espicom, August 2004). The vaccines market was valued at $9bn in 2001 and is growing at 12% per year (DataMonitor, 2002).
Commenting on Lipoxen's AIM listing, the company's CEO, Scott Maguire said, “Listing on AIM marks an important step forward in the development of Lipoxen. The funds raised will enable us to progress our very promising pipeline of drugs and vaccines in collaboration with major drug and vaccine companies. Our patented technology has the potential to improve the effectiveness not only of the current blockbuster drugs we are focusing on but also for a number of other well established products. In reducing dosing requirements and improving the delivery of our pipeline candidates such as insulin and pneumococcal vaccine, we expect our products to capture a significant share of the market.”
Canaccord Adams Ltd. acts as the Broker to the Company while Grant Thornton Corporate Finance acts as the Company's Nominated Adviser.
About Lipoxen
Founded in 1997, Lipoxen, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on improving the delivery of protein drugs and vaccines utilising its proprietary patented technologies, PolyXen® and ImuXen®- used to make a wide range of therapeutic products more effective with less dosing. PolyXen® and ImuXen® are based on the discoveries of Professor Gregory Gregoriadis, a world renowned drug and vaccine delivery scientist, and allow the Company to pursue the development of high-value pharmaceutical products. Lipoxen’s proprietary product development is complemented by strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, which provide access to additional products.
The protein and peptide market in which Lipoxen operates was valued at $30bn in 2003 and is expected to grow to $59bn by 2010 (World Generics Market, Espicom, August 2004). The vaccines market was valued at $9bn in 2001 and is growing at 12% per year (DataMonitor, 2002).
Strategy
Lipoxen identifies product candidates, which it plans to take into clinical trials and then at the appropriate stage of clinical development, out-license the product candidate to a partner. It is building its pipeline by developing its own product candidates and by co-developing product candidates in collaboration. In this way it can improve the proprietary products of strategic partners and assist them in product lifecycle management.
Management Team
Lipoxen has a strong management team comprised of scientists of international repute and senior personnel with extensive commercial experience in the biopharmaceutical and finance industries.
· Chairman Sir Brian Richards is one of Europe’s leading life science company founders and executives.
· The CEO, M Scott Maguire, has 17 years of life science/healthcare corporate finance experience, while the
· CSO, Professor Gregory Gregoriadis, is one of the world’s leading experts in drug and vaccine delivery.
· Lipoxen’s Business Development Director, Dr. Peter Laing, has served as a founding member and executive of a number of listed UK companies.
Lipoxen’s technologies
Lipoxen has established an industry-recognised reputation for identifying innovative products and establishing their effectiveness in patient treatment under clinical trials. Lipoxen adds value to the clinical trial process by using its proprietary-patented technologies, PolyXen and ImuXen.
PolyXen® is a natural polymer (polysialic acid, PSA) that can prolong the active life and improve the pharmacokinetics of conventional drugs, proteins, peptides, hormones, antibodies and their fragments, liposomes or other particulate delivery systems. This technology is considered a next generation drug delivery technology. Unlike PEGylation, which can give rise to substantial loss of activity (at least 70% of the original activity of IFN alpha), polysialylation substantially preserves activity (only 10 to 30% loss for IFN alpha). Since it preserves biological activity PS-conjugated products should have a much lower cost of goods than PEGylated forms. In addition, Lipoxen has demonstrated that PS conjugation significantly increase the circulation time of the protein (its half life), which should have positive effects on efficacy. PSA should show safety advantages, especially in chronic use, given its biodegradable nature. PEG is non-biodegradable and could lead to renal toxicity..
Performance superior to DNA and protein vaccines
ImuXen® is a novel liposome-based technology that can boost the effectiveness of DNA and protein vaccines, as well as combination vaccines made from both DNA and proteins, and offers multiple routes of administration, including oral administration. It has demonstrated in vivo significantly enhanced antibody responses versus best in class vaccines.
Performance superior to DNA and protein vaccines
The recent collaboration agreement with Baxter Healthcare (NYSE:BAX) will focus on an initial seven month research period to investigate the effectiveness of conjugating Baxter’s proprietary hemophilia protein Factor VIII with PolyXen®, Lipoxen’s proprietary technology. PolyXen is a natural polymer (polysialic acid) that can prolong the active life and improve the pharmacokinetics of conventional drugs and biologicals. It is considered a next generation drug delivery technology.
Lipoxen has also finalised an extended agreement with its current partner, the Serum Institute of India, expanding the number of drugs and vaccines the two companies are collaborating on, and facilitating access to the major Western markets. These products include current blockbusters erythropoietin (EPO), paclitaxel and a pneumococcal vaccine. This collaboration is the cutting edge of the trend of Western biopharmaceutical companies partnering with Indian companies. The Indian companies access high value Western technology and run the clinical trials and manufacture the drug and vaccine products. The UK government recognized the importance of this agreement by having Hon. Patricia Hewitt attend the agreement signing in Mumbai.
Additionally, Lipoxen will receive $750,000 in preclinical payments plus further milestones and royalties from National Biotechnologies OAO, the world’s fifth largest manufacturer of insulin, for licensing Lipoxen’s proprietary extended release insulin candidate for Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan markets.
Pipeline Products and Market Opportunity
With 13 proprietary pipeline products, Lipoxen compares favourably with established biotechnology companies such as Genentech (17 candidates in the clinic) and Amgen (20 candidates). Through an agreement with the Serum Institute of India (SIIL), Lipoxen owns rights to 10 product candidates, including erythropoietin (EPO), granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and a number of vaccine candidates for the Western pharmaceutical markets. In addition, Lipoxen has proprietary interferon (IFN) alpha and human insulin candidates, which have shown very favourable in vivo data in comparison to marketed IFN and insulin products. The current value of these products is shown in the table below.
Protein / Size of current market $bn
EPO 9-10
G-CSF 3
IFN 3
Insulin 5.5
Source: DataMonitor, Therapeutic Proteins
Alliances
The Company has an outstanding collaboration portfolio, and is currently working with three of the world’s largest biotechnology companies plus the world’s largest generics company and the world’s largest vaccines manufacturer, Serum Institute of India. These are in addition to the other agreements highlighted above.
Comparator companies
Many drug delivery companies are utilising PEG for drug delivery. Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR) is the leading company in this area with a market capitalisation of $1.65bn (Jan 10, 2006). Although Nektar is more advanced than Lipoxen in terms of clinical candidates and licensed technology with marketed products, IFN alpha and G-CSF, Lipoxen believes the competitive advantages of PolyXen® will challenge PEG’s leading market position in protein drug delivery. A company that, is at a similar preclinical stage to Lipoxen, is Maxygen Inc (NASDAQ: MAXY). Maxygen, another PEG type company, has 5 preclinical candidates and a market capitalisation of $302m (Jan 10, 2006).
Funding Requirements
Lipoxen raised £3.78m It envisions this funding will carry it through to mid 2007, by which time it hopes to have received human data on both PolyXen® and ImuXen® which should substantially increase the value of the Company.
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