Investment in New Company
IP2IPO Group PLC
14 September 2005
For immediate release 14 September 2005
IP2IPO Group plc
Investment in Cerogenix Limited
A Neuroscience Spin-out Company from King's College London
IP2IPO Group plc (AIM: IPO) ('IP2IPO' or 'the Company'), the intellectual
property commercialisation company, is pleased to announce that it has invested
£370,000 for a 47% stake in Cerogenix Limited ('Cerogenix'), a drug discovery
and diagnostics spin-out company from King's College London. The investment is
part of a seed capital round of £420,000, with £50,000 being invested by a
co-investor, Kinetique Biomedical Seed Fund.
Cerogenix's underlying science has been developed over many years by Dr Adrian
Pini from the King's College London MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology.
Cerogenix will develop novel therapeutics for neurological diseases such as
Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury. In addition to
its drug discovery and development activities, Cerogenix will also focus on a
near-term opportunity to develop a diagnostic tool for the early detection of
neurodegenerative diseases, with the objective of enabling clinicians to
identify the correct treatment for patients at an earlier stage than is
currently possible.
Commenting on today's announcement, Dr Pini, the academic founder of Cerogenix,
said: 'Today, there is a global research effort to develop drugs that will treat
individual neurological diseases. What we are doing at Cerogenix has the
potential to address the full spectrum of neurological disorders, and is an
enormously promising approach to one of the most intractable areas in medicine.'
Alison Campbell, Managing Director of King's College London Enterprises, said:
'I am delighted at the formation of Cerogenix which will be our third
collaborative spin-out with IP2IPO in what is proving to be a very successful
partnership. The outstanding research being undertaken within the MRC Centre for
Developmental Neurobiology has provided Cerogenix with an excellent platform to
develop this research for the detection and treatment of neurological
disorders.'
For more information please contact:
IP2IPO Group plc 020 7489 5200
David Norwood, Chief Executive Officer
Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000
Tim Anderson, Mark Court, Mary-Jane Johnson
Cerogenix Limited
Dr Adrian Pini 020 7848 6427
King's College London Enterprises 020 7848 6795
Alison Campbell, Managing Director
Notes for editors
IP2IPO is an intellectual property (IP) company that specialises in
commercialising university technology. The Company was founded in 2001 and
listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange plc in October 2003.
IP2IPO's first partnership was with the University of Oxford. In return for an
investment of £20 million, IP2IPO has acquired 50 per cent of the University of
Oxford's equity in spin-out companies and technology licenses based on
intellectual property created at the Chemistry Department until 2015. In
November 2003, IP2IPO created a £5 million seed capital fund for investing in
spin-out companies across the University of Oxford, not just those originating
within the Chemistry Department.
In March 2002, IP2IPO entered into a second long-term partnership with the
University of Southampton. Under the terms of this partnership, IP2IPO is
committed to working with the University of Southampton in the identification
and facilitation of spin-out companies from across the University of Southampton
and to investing £5 million in early-stage University of Southampton spin-out
companies over a four year period in return for equity stakes in those
companies. In addition, IP2IPO also received a 20 per cent stake in Southampton
Asset Management Limited, a company that has been formed to hold the
University's equity stakes in its spin-out companies. The partnership has a term
of at least 25 years.
IP2IPO entered into its third long-term partnership in May 2003 with King's
College London. IP2IPO will work with King's College London to help identify and
progress commercialisation opportunities as well as invest £5 million in seed
capital in spin-out companies from King's College London over a five year period
in return for equity stakes in those companies. In addition, IP2IPO will receive
20 per cent of King's College London's equity in spin-out companies and
technology licenses. The partnership has a term of 25 years.
In October 2003, IP2IPO announced a fourth partnership with the Centre for Novel
Agricultural Products ('CNAP'), based at the University of York. CNAP is a
flagship research centre that specialises in plant and microbial gene discovery.
Under the terms of the partnership a new company, Amaethon Limited, has been
created which has the right to commercialise CNAP's IP for 25 years. IP2IPO has
invested £1.15m in Amaethon Limited in return for a 40% equity stake in Amaethon
Limited (the remaining equity being owned by the University of York) and will
also invest in the spin-out companies based on CNAP's IP which Amaethon Limited
creates.
In June 2004, IP2IPO acquired Top Technology Ventures Limited, an investment
adviser to early stage technology funds. This combines IP2IPO's expertise in the
creation of new ventures based on world leading university IP with Top
Technology's focus on making early stage venture capital investments.
In January 2005, IP2IPO acquired Techtran, a company set up in 2002 to
commercialise university intellectual property under a long-term technology
commercialisation contract with the University of Leeds. Under the terms of the
contract Techtran receives a significant (30%) interest in spin-out companies
created and technology licences negotiated, in return for the provision of
technology transfer services to the University.
In May 2005, IP2IPO announced the launch of LifeUK, a new subsidiary company.
LifeUK, which has since been renamed Modern Biosciences, will in-license life
science intellectual property created by medical researchers at universities
with which IP2IPO already has partnerships, other universities in the UK and
similar academic and charitable research institutions. Modern Biosciences'
objective is to further develop the intellectual property which it in-licenses
with a view to creating substantial value either by subsequently licensing these
development programmes to the pharmaceutical industry or via the creation of new
ventures.
To date, 4 spin-out companies from the IP2IPO portfolio have listed on the AIM
Market of the London Stock Exchange plc: Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping plc,
Synairgen plc, VASTox plc and Proximagen Neuroscience plc.
For more information please visit www.ip2ipo.com
King's College London is one of the two oldest and largest colleges of the
University of London with over 13,800 undergraduate students and nearly 5,700
postgraduates in ten schools of study. It is a member of the Russell Group: a
coalition of the UK's major research-based universities. The College has had 24
of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research
quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level, and it has recently
received an excellent result in its audit by the Quality Assurance Agency.
King's is in the top group of UK universities for research earnings, with income
from grants and contracts of £100 million, and has an annual turnover of more
than £348 million. In 2004 the College was once again awarded an AA- financial
credit rating from Standard & Poor's.
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