The company plans to float in July.
Abzena, a UK biotech, is to float on London’s Alternative Investment Market in July 2014. The company is the result of a 2013 merger between PolyTherics and Antitope, the former being an Imperial College and UCL spin-out created in 2002. The company had retained the name PolyTherics until May 2014.
The company, which is located in London, Cambridge and Coventry, has secured the support for an IPO from its existing shareholders that include Imperial Innovations, Imperial College’s tech transfer office, and Invesco, a US-headquartered investment management company. Under the IPO terms, certain existing investors will be subject to a lock-up on their shares until July 2015.
Abzena, unlike most biotechs that do an IPO, is already generating a revenue. Its technology is two-fold. One platform screens proteins that drug makers hope to develop into medicines to determine whether they would trigger an immune response, and thus be destroyed by the body before they could have any effect. The second platform engineers proteins by tweaking the structure to prevent an immune response.
The company is aiming to become the go-to developer for cancer treatments known as antibody-drug conjugates. These drugs attach cancer fighting molecules to antibodies. The antibodies are designed to track down the tumour, carrying the medicine to the precise site where it is needed. Currently, there are only two such antibody-drug conjugates on the market.
John Burt, chief executive, said: “We believe the core story and investment proposition are strong. The business model is focussed on revenue generation. It is not a high-risk biotech story, which may be more subject to the vagaries of market demand.”