Expedeon AG (Frankfurt: EXNN; ISIN: DE000A2YN801; Prime Standard) announces the signing of an agreement with Abcam plc (London Stock Exchange: ABC; ISIN: GB00B6774699; AIM MTF), Cambridge, UK, to sell its proteomics and immunology business activities for a cash payment of EUR 120 million. This purchase price is equivalent to twice Expedeon’s current market capitalization or excess of 9-times 2018 annual group revenue. The agreement is subject to shareholder approval at an extraordinary meeting of Expedeon AG to be held in Heidelberg on December 19th, 2019.
The agreement covers the sale and transfer of all shares in Expedeon Holdings Limited (Cambridge, UK), organised in three divisions: the proteomics-focused Expedeon Ltd. and the two subdivisions within Expedeon’s immunology portfolio, Innova Biosciences Ltd. (Cambridge, UK) and TGR BioSciences Pty Ltd. (Thebarton, Australia). Expedeon Inc (San Diego, USA) will be transferred from the Expedeon Holding Ltd. prior to the sale to become part of Expedeon AG (Heidelberg, Germany), the listed entity and parent company of Expedeon Holdings Ltd. Expedeon Inc. will transfer the non-electrophoretic instrument assets to the purchaser. Following the transaction, Expedeon AG will change its corporate name and branding, which will be proposed to the extraordinary meeting.
“We are very pleased to announce the signing of this deal with our longstanding partner Abcam, subject to our shareholders’ approval. Our grow, buy and build strategy of the past years has helped us create an attractive portfolio of innovative products and services in proteomics and immunology. In turn, we have now realised significant value for our company with the planned sale of this portfolio to Abcam”, said Dr. Heikki Lanckriet, CEO of Expedeon AG. “The remaining business will focus on new attractive growth markets. With our strong intellectual property (IP) and genomics business know-how, we are determined to build a leading DNA manufacturing firm taking a novel, cell-free approach that offers significant advantages over the classic fermenter-based method and unlocks a growing market in the gene therapy field. The gross proceeds from the transaction with Abcam will provide us with the necessary financial resources for this strategy,” Dr. Lanckriet concluded.
Expedeon AG will retain approximately 38 % of its assets at the level of individual financial statements and 15 % at the level of consolidated financial statements. In the future, the Company will use parts of the proceeds of this transaction to apply its proven grow, buy and build strategy to its genomics business that it will continue to pursue through the remaining Spanish operation Expedeon Biotech S.L.U. (Madrid, Spain) and that is driven by its proprietary TruePrime(TM) technology. Future activities will include DNA manufacturing and establishing GMP certified facilities to supply DNA products for research, therapeutic and other uses requiring large amounts of high purity DNA, such the fast-growing market of novel gene therapies.
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Unlike conventional therapies where small molecules, proteins and antibodies are the typical active ingredients, DNA delivers the cure in gene therapies. The production of gene therapies and gene vaccines requires large quantities of high-quality DNA. Synthetic DNA is thus expected to drive the development of the therapeutic products market towards USD 38 billion by 2020. Currently, the market is growing at an annual rate (CAGR) of 44%. Further business activities will address the research tools market. More specifically, reverse transcriptases currently has an annual volume of USD 266 million. The isothermal DNA amplification market segment had a 2015 volume of USD 266 million and a CAGR of 13.5 %. Last, Expedeon AG expects to be able to address certain segments of the diagnostics products market, e.g. the liquid biopsy segment with estimated USD 2 billion (2022), annually growing at 20 %.
Source: Bloomberg