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Appendix 1A
Drug Discovery Company AdAlta Raises AU$10m in Over-Subscribed Australian IPO to Accelerate New Therapies for Lung Fibrosis
- AdAlta raises AU$10 million (US$7.1m, EUR€6.9m) in over-subscribed IPO on the ASX (ASX: 1AD)
- Proceeds from fund raising to support Phase 1 development of its lead candidate drug (AD-114) to treat lung fibrosis, for onward partnering to big pharma
- Powerful proprietary technology platform, that generates new biological drugs called i-bodies to be marketed to global biotech and pharmaceutical companies
Melbourne, Australia, 12 August, 2016 – AdAlta Limited (ASX: 1AD), the biotechnology company specialising in the discovery and development of protein-based therapeutics has closed its AU$10 million initial public offering (IPO) on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) following strong support from investors, including a number of leading investment funds and existing shareholders. The offer was oversubscribed.
The Company expects to commence trading on the ASX on or around August 22. Under the IPO, a total of 40 million new shares will be issued at $0.25 per share, raising AU$10 million. Shares held by directors and existing major shareholders will be subject to escrow for between 6 and 24 months from the date of listing.
The company will use the funds to complete the first phase of a clinical study aimed at validating its lead candidate drug (AD-114) which shows promise in treating fibrotic diseases, notably idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), for which current therapies have limited efficacy and where there is a high-unmet medical need.
AD-114 was developed based on AdAlta’s novel technology platform that produces human proteins which mimic the shape of shark antibodies and engineers their key antigen binding and stability features to create unique compounds, known as i-bodies, for therapeutic intervention in disease. The Company is utilising the power of its i-body technology platform to develop a pipeline of i-body drugs with an initial focus on treating fibrotic diseases.
AdAlta CEO Samantha Cobb said, “AdAlta received a significant amount of institutional support with several leading healthcare and biotechnology funds participating in the IPO. Proceeds from the IPO will expedite our first candidate into Phase 1 human clinical trials for the lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Our strategy is to license this drug candidate on completion of the planned Phase 1 clinical studies.
“The IPO funding will allow AdAlta to develop AD-114 for licensing to a major pharmaceutical company. There is heightened global interest in promising new treatments for fibrosis as well as for the new generations of antibody technologies. The fibrosis sector is characterised by licensing deals with major pharmaceutical companies at the Phase 1 stage. Up-front payments of $100 million and up to $500 million in milestone payments have been typical in recent transactions.”
She continued, “We plan to expand our development pipeline of novel proprietary i-body drug candidates. AdAlta intends to license or partner our drug discoveries with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, with the objective of earning up front milestone payments and longer term licensing revenues.”
Patersons Securities acted as Lead Manager to the IPO.
About AdAlta
AdAlta Limited (ASX: 1AD) is an Australian based drug development company headquartered in Melbourne. The Company is focused on using its proprietary technology platform to generate i-bodies – a new class of protein therapeutics, with applications as therapeutic drugs to treat disease.
The i-body is a human analogue of the antigen binding domain of the shark single domain antibody, which combines the advantages of monoclonal antibodies (high target specificity and affinity) with the beneficial stability features of small molecules. In addition to stability, the i-body has a long binding loop that is a feature of shark single domain antibodies not present in either human or next generation antibodies. This feature enables the i-body to recognise and bind to a diverse range of different therapeutically-relevant drug targets, including those that are difficult/intractable to access by current antibody therapies. These include clinically important targets such as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels.
AdAlta is developing its lead i-body candidate, AD-114, for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and other human fibrotic diseases, for which current therapies are sub-optimal and there is a high-unmet medical need.
The Company also plans to continue further drug discovery and development directed towards other drug targets and diseases with its i-body technology platform.
Further information can be found at: www.adalta.com.au
At the Company
Sam Cobb
Chief Executive Officer
AdAlta Limited
Tel: +61 (0) 3 9479 5159
E: s.cobb@adalta.com.au
Media (Australia)
Andrew Geddes
Tel: +61 (0) 408 677 734
E: adalta@instinctif.com
Media (International)
Sue Charles/Daniel Gooch
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7866 7905
E: adalta@instinctif.com
Australian Drug Discovery Company AdAlta, Announces IPO to Accelerate New Therapies for Lung Fibrosis
| Melbourne, Australia, July 8, 2016 – AdAlta Limited, the biotechnology company specialising in the discovery and development of protein based therapeutics is seeking to raise up to AU$10 million in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Australian Securities Exchange to fund clinical studies with its lead compound (AD-114) which shows promise in treating fibrosis.
AdAlta has developed a novel technology platform that produces proteins which mimic the shape of shark antibodies and engineers their key stability features to create unique compounds, known as i-bodies, for therapeutic intervention in disease. The Company is utilising the power of its i-body technology platform to develop a pipeline of drugs, called i-bodies, with an initial focus on treating fibrotic diseases. AdAlta’s first focus is on developing AD-114 for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and other fibrotic diseases, for which current therapies have limited efficacy and where there is a high-unmet medical need. AdAlta is seeking to take advantage of the fact global pharmaceutical companies are eager to access innovative new drug candidates to fill their pipelines. The Company’s strategy is to partner its i-body technology platform to generate early revenues and also to license its i-body drugs at an early stage, for example based on data from Phase I/II trials. AdAlta has no plan to commercialise new drugs arising from its technology itself and make investors wait up to a decade or more before they see any returns. CEO Sam Cobb said, “Proceeds from the offer will be deployed to expedite our first candidate into Phase 1 human clinical trials and extend the technology into other diseases. Our strategy is to license this drug candidate on completion of the planned Phase 1 clinical studies proposed in the offer. “The IPO funding will allow AdAlta to develop AD-114 to a point that will be ready for licensing to a major pharmaceutical company. There is heightened global interest in promising new treatments for fibrosis as well as for the new generations of antibody technologies. “We also plan to expand our own internal development pipeline of novel proprietary i-body drug candidates generating sustainable future licensing opportunities. “In addition, AdAlta intends to license or partner the i-body technology platform for drug discovery with pharmaceutical and biotechnology Companies, with the objective of earning up front, milestone payments and licensing revenues. “Our business model of partnering our i-body library and early licensing of our proprietary i-body drug candidates offers both short-term and medium-term revenue opportunities and spreads the risk,” she said.
Investors include the highly respected Australian biotechnology pioneer Leon Serry as well as biotechnology investors and Yuuwa Capital Directors Dr James Williams and Liddy McCall who have been responsible for the commercialisation activities of multiple technologies that have led to five FDA approved products and delivered returns of 10X to seed investors through a trade sale of one of these companies. Board members include experienced biotechnology executive Paul MacLeman and Dr John Chiplin, former CEO of ASX-listed Arana Therapeutics acquired by Cephalon Inc (now Teva) for US$200 million and Domantis which was developing a similar class of biological drugs and was acquired by global pharmaceutical group GSK for £230 million. AdAlta also has a number of world class scientific advisors, who collectively have more than 20 drug products approved. Brian Richardson has 42 years of pharmaceutical experience, including as Head of Preclinical Research with Novartis, John Westwick with over 14 years’ experience was head of respiratory drug development at Novartis and David McGibney has over 19 years’ experience at Pfizer, including as Director and Site Head, Pfizer Sandwich. Chief Executive Officer and Managing director Sam Cobb has over 15 years’ experience in business development and commercialisation of early stage technologies. Prior to AdAlta, she led business development at the Co-operative Research Centre for Diagnostics. Sam has also worked for several successful medical technology companies and the University of Queensland’s technology commercialisation businesses Uniquest and IMBcom. AdAlta’s lead drug candidate, AD-114 has shown anti-fibrotic activity as well as anti-inflammatory activity in pre-clinical studies, which are important for preventing the disease and for the treatment of IPF. Industry market intelligence firm Evaluate Pharma estimates worldwide sales of drugs for IPF will be approximately US$4.2 billion by 2020. There is currently no cure for IPF with most people living only 3 to 5 years after diagnosis and the two approved drugs do not provide a cure. In addition to AD-114, over the past few years AdAlta has developed a highly valuable proprietary library containing over 2 billion unique i-body protein compounds from which a large number of drug candidates addressing a number of therapeutic areas could be identified. There is a large demand for biological drugs including therapeutic proteins: with global sales revenue for all monoclonal antibody products in 2013 at approximately US$75 billion. Based on the current rate of approvals, antibody drug sales are expected to be approximately US$125 billion per annum by 2020. Drug companies are also eager to seek out sources of innovation, to combat the entry of biosimilars.
At the Company Media (Australia) Media (International) |
