Fusion to become third Northern Irish Company listed on the London Stock Exchange
Fusion Antibodies to seek AIM IPO
We are delighted to announce that we are seeking a listing on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange and has published its AIM Admission Document which will be available to view here.
We propose to raise approximately £5.5 million via a conditional placing through our NOMAD and broker, Allenby Capital Ltd. It is expected that admission to trading on AIM will become effective at 8am on Monday 18 December and shares will trade under the AIM symbol FAB. We expect to have a market capitalisation on admission of c. £18.1 million.
Use of funds
The net proceeds of the placing will be used to expand our existing laboratory space, increase our sales and marketing efforts, for the development of new service lines, as well as providing additional working capital. We intend to expand our current laboratory space and have secured additional space in the building on our existing site, which will enable us to more than double our facility. We intend to complete the fit out of the new laboratory by the end of 2018.
About Fusion Antibodies plc
Fusion Antibodies provides a broad range of services in antibody generation, development, production, characterisation and optimisation. These services include antigen expression, antibody production, purification and sequencing, antibody humanisation using our proprietary CDRxTM platform and the production of antibody generating stable cell lines to provide material for use in clinical trials. Since 2012, we have successfully sequenced over 250 antibodies and successfully completed over 100 humanisation projects for our clients.
Fusion Antibodies was established in 2001 as a spin out from Queen’s University Belfast. We were initially a drug development business but revised our operations to focus on CRO work in 2011. We have recorded profits for the last two financial years, with annual sales of £1.9 million during the year ended 31 March 2017, and had an order book of £1.3 million as at 30 September 2017. In the six months to 30 September 2017, we recorded a turnover of £1.4 million. Our management team is highly experienced with a combined 47 years’ experience in the biopharma industry.
The global monoclonal antibody therapeutics market, which accounted for 43 per cent. of the global biologics market in 2016, was valued at between $85.4 billion and $86.7 billion in 2015 and is forecast to increase at a CAGR of between 8.2 per cent. and 12.2 per cent. for the period 2016 to 2024.
Fusion Antibodies have an international, blue-chip client base, which includes eight of the top ten global pharmaceutical companies by revenue. A significant amount of our revenue is generated from follow on service requests from existing clients, providing good visibility of future earnings.
Our growth strategy is based on the expansion of our client base as well as the addition of new services including antibody affinity maturation and development of a mammalian antibody library. This strategy uses our proven technology and expertise and targets expansion both in the UK market and internationally.
Shareholders
Existing shareholders of Fusion include venture capital firm Crescent Capital (also an investor in another Belfast firm, Andor Technology plc, which was bought by Oxford Instruments for c. £176m in December 2013), as well as Viridian Growth Fund (a NI focussed VC fund run by Belfast based Clarendon Fund Managers) QUBIS Ltd and Invest Northern Ireland. New investors include Hargreave Hale, Amati Global Investors, Unicorn AIM VCT and Octopus Investments.
Dr Paul Kerr, CEO of Fusion, commented: “We are very pleased with the level of interest generated from new institutional investors in support of our AIM listing. When concluded we anticipate the placing to be oversubscribed and this demonstrates the strong support for our business strategy as we continue to invest in further growth across the business.
“We have established Fusion as a one-stop-shop for antibody engineering & humanisation, and cell line development for the world’s largest developers of antibody-based therapeutics drugs and diagnostics. We already have our first humanisation project in clinical trials and expect more to follow, and continue to grow the business having established a healthy forward order book. The move to AIM and the additional funding will allow us to continue this growth trajectory by expanding our capacity and developing our offering of new, high value, market differentiating products.”
Enquiries:
| Fusion Antibodies plc | www.fusionantibodies.com |
| Dr Paul Kerr, Chief Executive Officer | Via Walbrook PR |
| James Fair, Chief Financial Officer | |
| Walbrook PR | Tel: +44 (0)20 7933 8780 or fusion@walbrookpr.com |
| Paul McManus | Mob: +44 (0)7980 541 893 |
