Alizyme raises £14.5m; appoints new CEO: shares gain 15%
Alizyme plc (AZM.L) has raised £14.5m through a placing of 18m new ordinary shares.with UK institutional investors at 80p each, a premium of 4.9% to last night’s closing price.
The Cambridge-based drug developer also said long-time CEO Richard Palmer had decided to step down. Tim McCarthy (pictured), who co-founded Alizyme in 1995 and has served as Finance Director since then, will succeed him.
Dr Palmer will remain available to the company as a consultant.
The share placing, which amounts to 10% of share capital, provides financial stability through into the second half of 2008, the company said, in order to allow a focus on and the acceleration of the commercialisation of its product portfolio
It will enable the company to continue funding its late stage, diversified portfolio of products for the treatment of obesity and diabetes, IBS, ulcerative colitis and mucositis.
It will boost patient recruitment into the Phase III trials for renzapride and Colal-Pred in order to report results around the end of 2007; to continue preparing cetilistat for entry into Phase III trials in 2007 and to progress ATL-104 for mucositis for preparation into its next stage of clinical development in 2007.
The stock market welcomed both items of news pushing the share price up 15%, or 11.75p, to 88p, valuing the company at £160m.
Portfolio
Alizyme said it had made good progress with the development of its portfolio in 2006.
Both renzapride and Colal-Pred have moved into the last stage of development with patient recruitment into their respective Phase III clinical trials.
Cetilistat has now completed its Phase II clinical development and following positive feedback from the FDA is now being actively prepared for Phase III. Earlier this year the Company published positive proof of concept data from the Phase IIa clinical trial for ATL-104, its mucositis product.
Alizyme will be evaluating all options for commercialising the portfolio through securing partnerships and alliances to bring each product to the market. To assist and accelerate this process Alizyme will be working closely with NovaQuest, the strategic partnering group within Quintiles Transnational.
Mr McCarthy said: "The Board remains confident of the potential of its pipeline and recognises that a greater focus and emphasis on commercialising the portfolio in 2007 is required in order to realise the inherent value of each of the products."
2 new directors
The company said current Head of Development Roger Hickling who joined Alizyme in 2002 has been appointed to the Board as R&D Director.
Financial Controller David Campbell succeeds Mr McCarthy as Finance Director.
1st December 2006
