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Heart products key to Cambridge University spin-out's IPO

Written by Tony Quested

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

A Cambridge company is aiming to fill a global market void by creating new health and medical food products designed to unclog blood vessels and stave off heart disease – and push them through major pharmacies. Cambridge Theranostics Ltd believes the move could significantly reduce the number of people suffering strokes and heart attacks. It has already raised several millions of pounds in a pre-IPO fundraising and is set for a stockmarket flotation next year on the back of a new commercial collaboration. Cambridge Theranostics, a six year old University of Cambridge spin-out, is working with German-owned Symrise AG to accelerate the commercialisation process of new health and medical food products. Symrise will contribute up to €8 million in milestone-related payments towards the development and clinical evaluation of the new products. The partners will share the profits on any successful products that result from the collaboration.  Symrise has also invested €2 million in capital into Cambridge Theranostics, which specialises in the diagnostics and prophylaxis of cardiovascular diseases. The Cambridge company will use its proprietary screen to select natural products from Symrise’s extensive libraries of extracts and compounds to identify high value compounds that can best protect plasma lipoproteins from oxidative damage and afford effective protection against cardiovascular diseases. Cambridge Theranostics will then perform pharmacokinetic and clinical studies with the initial aim of launching two products by 2010. The Cambridge company’s chief executive officer, Dr Gunter Schmidt, said: “Thanks to this partnership we can develop unique health products based on scientific and clinically validated knowledge. The products will be available via pharmacies. “Prevention of cardio-vascular complications is a rapidly emerging healthcare sector, currently covered neither by traditional pharmaceutical companies, nor by the food industry. “There is a particular need to maintain healthy blood vessels, because about half the population affected by heart attacks or strokes had no prior symptoms.” Cambridge Theranostics was founded in 2002 to commercialise intellectual property relating to lipid oxidation from its founder, Dr Ivan Petyaev.  The company identified AtheroAbzymes, a novel drug target that is involved in the oxidation of lipids, leading to atherosclerosis – basically chronic inflammation of artery walls. Cambridge Theranostics developed Ateronon – the first clinically proven product able to inhibit plasma lipoprotein oxidation. This is also a natural product and is licensed to Cambridge Theranostics exclusively by Nestlé. The Cambridge company has an impressive network of clinical research partners in the UK, Russia, the United States and Europe and works with major corporations to develop, manufacture and market its products. The company recently completed a pre-IPO private placement that was managed by the London broker Charles Stanley Securities,which raised around £5 million, according to Dr Schmidt. Management are now looking at a flotation towards the end of 2009, he confirmed. While industry observers believe it will be London, it is by no means certain whether this would be a main listing or a float on the Alternative Investment Market, which tends to be a kinder environment for tech-related businesses. Dr Schmidt said that the company would take Charles Stanley’s advice on the optimum market opportunity prevailing at the time. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 286 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

 

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