15th May 2014 14:02
LONDON (Alliance News) - Horizon Discovery Group PLC, the biotechnology company that listed on AIM earlier this year, Thursday said it had bought the CombinatoRx service business and assets from Zalicus for GBP4.7 million, a deal that will give it a revenue generating screening business supported by expertise in drug combination studies.
The company said the deal will provide it with a base for future growth in North America and the potential for scaling up service revenue.
Horizon Discovery supplies research tools to pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, Bayer and Merck & co. to enable them to develop personalized treatments that target genes responsible for diseases.
It said it will create a new US-based subsidiary, Horizon CombinatoRx Inc, to provide research organizations with access to the cHTS platform and Chalice analytics software for screening and analysis of complementary drug combinations, with the aim of identifying personalized medicines for cancer.
The cHTS and Chalice informatics platform delivered revenue of USD8.1 million in 2013, up 10% on 2012. The assets being acquired include two fully-integrated robotic screening platforms, customer contracts, the Chalice informatics platform, a library of approximately 800 cell lines and an extensive compound and chemical probe library.
The new Horizon CombinatoRx subsidiary will be led by Jeb Ledell, currently vice president of corporate operations at Zalicus.
"The acquisition is in line with our ambition, stated at the time of our recent IPO, of expanding our intellectual property portfolio, capabilities and commercial offerings as well as creating a strategic geographical presence in the heart of one of our core markets," Horizon Discovery Chief Executive Darrin Disley said in a statement.
"We have been very impressed by the scientific excellence, passion and resilience of the CombinatoRx service business over many years," Disley added.
Horizon Discovery shares were up 3.3% at 171.5 pence Thursday.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @SteveMcGrath1
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