SFBR shorts: Sagentia sells stake in Intrasonics; Cambridge Enterprise does licence deal on potential cancer drug
Sagentia Group AG, the international technology consulting and venturing firm, said it has sold its shareholding in spin-out venture, Intrasonics Ltd to Mainframe Participaties BV for £1.46m cash upfront. Further payments, up to a maximum of £4.50m, could be received over the coming years depending on performance.
Intrasonics is an interactive media services company which provides a new way of directly connecting broadcast media to mobile networks using data embedded in sound. Intrasonics' patented 'Sound Link and Sync' system addresses a number of applications including interactive gaming and advertising.
Sagentia CEO Martin Frost (pictured) said: “The sale of Intrasonics represents an important milestone in the strategy for the Group outlined earlier in the year. The strategy over the last 12 months has focused on returning the consulting business to profitability and growth, building the technology licensing and product royalty side of the business while at the same time seeking to trade out of the current venture capital portfolio.
“Fee income order intake into the consulting business for 2007 is expected to exceed £17.7m, more than 10% ahead of 2006 (£15.9m), and the business is now trading profitability on a quarter by quarter basis.”
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Cambridge Enterprise Ltd, the commercialisation office of the University of Cambridge, completed a licence agreement with Medarex Inc for the potential development by Medarex of a therapeutic drug that will target cancer and autoimmune diseases.
A team from the University has identified a cell surface marker that is expressed at high levels in certain cancer cells and in some tissues affected by autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease but at lower levels in tissues unaffected by disease. This marker may provide a target for the potential development of novel antibody based-medicines to treat diseases in patients.
Medarex is a US based company specialising in the development of fully human antibody therapeutics.
The target was identified by Professor John Trowsdale, Dr Rob Eagle and Dr Louise Bacon in the Department of Pathology.
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Ubisense, specialists in precise real-time location systems appointed Charles Sturman as Vice President Marketing. He joins from Motorola, where he was director of Product Marketing for Motorola Mobile Devices’ Future Wireless Products division. Charles was responsible for 3GPP LTE market strategy, Chipset product roadmap and Licensing P&L.
“Charles brings to Ubisense a background of more than 15 years in developing go-to-market strategies and propositions combining wireless technology with whole-system solutions. Furthermore, his technical understanding of computing and wireless communications combined with global business development experience will enable us to drive strong product credibility in our focus markets” CEO Richard Green said.
20th December 2007
