Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The sales of Alphamosaic, DNA Research Innovations and FillFactory were the catalyst for Prelude’s bounceback after what chairman David Wansbrough called “a number of difficult years.”

Its interim results to the end of September show that the net asset value of its investments increased 4.3 per cent to £51.2m from the end of March position.

Chairman David Wansbrough said: “After a number of difficult years for realising investments for both the Trust and the venture capital industry at large, these disposals will enable Prelude to continue to invest in exciting new technology businesses across the life sciences and broader technology spectrum.”

He said Prelude would continue its policy of investing in projects with strong intellectual property portfolios, focusing principally on seed and early stage companies but also considering businesses that were closer to, or already generating, revenues.

Prelude director Bob Hook added: “Prelude was a founding investor in the three world-class companies in their fields that were sold during 2004 for close to $300 million (£1674m) in aggregate.

“I believe these disposals represent three of the highest value exits achieved by the European technology and life sciences sector in the current year and demonstrate the returns that our style of investment can generate.”

Prelude’s quoted company portfolio at period end included four quoted companies, Oxford BioMedica plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, Broadcom listed on NASDAQ, Inflazyme on the Toronto Stock Exchange and CeNeS Pharmaceuticals listed on AIM.

During the six months, Prelude sold 500,000 shares in Oxford BioMedica, realising £95,000 and has since sold a further 2.7m shares for £523,000.

The Trust also sold 4.1 million shares in CeNeS for £433,000.

At the end of September, the Trust had 14 active investments including the four quoted company shareholdings. During the reported period follow-on investments were made in seven of the unquoted companies, two of which were the result of prior commitments.

Prelude is committed to invest a further £2 million in five of its existing portfolio companies.