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Biofusion aims to float on AIMBiofusion, which has agreed a long-term exclusive IP commercialisation agreement with the University of Sheffield, intends to raise up to £10m by way of a placing of new ordinary shares with institutional investors. The proceeds of the Placing will be used to finance the development of its current portfolio companies, to establish and develop new portfolio companies and for general working capital purposes for Biofusion. Biofusion is anticipated to have a market capitalisation of approximately £30m. Biofusion has been involved with the University of Sheffield for the past three years and has agreed a ten-year exclusive arrangement with the University for the commercialisation of IP owned by the University in the area of medical life sciences. The University is a world-class life sciences research centre, spending £30m in 2002/3 on research in medical life sciences. This spending level is expected to grow year on year giving an estimated £0.5bn of research funding over the next ten years. The University, which celebrates its centenary this year, can count five Nobel Prize winners among its alumni, and data from the latest UK Government's Research Assessment Exercise 2001 ("RAE 2001") showed it ranked fifth in the UK for the quality of its life sciences research. In addition to securing the long term exclusive rights to the University owned medical life sciences IP, the agreement also gives Biofusion shareholdings in an existing portfolio of eight spin out companies and an economic interest in a ninth. A number of these companies, which are developing new medical solutions in a number of exciting areas, have recently raised or are in the process of raising funds and at least one is expected to be ready for exit within the next 12 to 24 months. The Directors believe that Biofusion's combination of - long term exclusive rights to IP resulting from a world class university research centre; - shareholdings in an existing portfolio of selected life science related spin out companies; - a commercially focused management who have all worked for UK publicly listed technology related companies and have successfully taken companies from start-up through initial funding to public listing; and - the net proceeds from the Placing will provide an opportunity to create a robust and sustainable business. Code Securities Limited has been appointed as Nominated Advisor to Biofusion. The Management team of Biofusion includes: Doug Liversidge, Chairman, who has extensive private and public company experience as well as having senior positions in the University of Sheffield, where he acts as its senior industrial advisor and Chairman of Sheffield University Enterprises Limited ("SUEL"). David Baynes, CEO, who was previously Finance Director of Codemasters, a privately owned software company, where he was responsible for all aspects of the company's finances and corporate finance activity. Prior to that, David was a co-founder of Toad plc and took the company to AIM and a full listing on the London Stock Exchange. David was also at Celsis plc, and was responsible for all elements of the company's finance from inception to eventual flotation in 1993. Peter Grant, Operations Director, who was previously co-founder and Director of Business Development and Technology at Celsis plc, which he helped achieve a full listing on the London Stock Exchange in 1993. Previously Peter was Head of Research and Development at Enzymatix and Senior Research Scientist at Genzyme. Commenting on today's announcement, Doug Liversidge, Chairman of Biofusion said: "The proposed fund raising that we have announced today is designed to provide us with the investment capital needed to commercialise successfully some of the world class IP being generated at the University of Sheffield. Biofusion's experienced management team is already working closely with the University to generate value from its IP in the medical life science sectors and the spin-off companies that have already been created. We are confident that the capital that we intend to raise in conjunction with our AIM listing will enable us to accelerate the value creation from our long term agreement with the University, thereby allowing us to generate considerable value for shareholders." For further information please email mediateam@sheffield.ac.uk |
