Portfolio company announces intention to float

16 June 2014

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Portfolio company Abzena announces intention to float

Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO or 'the Group' 'Innovations') notes that Abzena Limited ('Abzena'), formerly known as PolyTherics, has today announced its intention to proceed with an initial public offering and to seek Admission of its shares to AIM.

Abzena is focused on providing proprietary technologies and value-added services to enable the development of better biopharmaceuticals. The company comprises two wholly owned subsidiary businesses - PolyTherics and Antitope - which have established a broad suite of complementary services and technologies that are designed to improve the chances of successful development of antibodies and proteins with enhanced therapeutic benefits.

Innovations currently has a 26.2 per cent. interest in the issued share capital of Abzena before any fund raising. As at 31 January 2014, Innovations holding in Abzena was valued at £11.1 million, making it the Group's fourth largest portfolio company by value.

Russ Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Innovations, said:

"We are delighted with the progress that Abzena has made since we led the financing in July 2013.

"Abzena has built an impressive global customer base which includes many of the world's top pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Several therapeutic antibody candidates developed using Abzena's proprietary technology are currently being advanced by its customers through clinical trials.

"As a result of the £13.5m funding round in July 2013 - which we led - Abzena is our fourth largest investment by value. It is another demonstration that our portfolio is maturing, as Abzena is the fourth of our portfolio companies to join the public markets in recent months, following on closely from Circassia Pharmaceuticals, Oxford Immunotec and IXICO."

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About Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Imperial Innovations creates, builds and invests in pioneering technologies developed from the academic research of the UK's four leading Universities. The Group supports scientists and entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas and intellectual property by leading the formation of new companies, providing facilities in the early stages, providing investment and encouraging co-investment to accelerate development, providing operational expertise and recruiting high-calibre management teams. It also runs an Incubator in London that is the initial home for many of its technology spin-outs.

Originally formed as the Technology Transfer office for Imperial College - a role it still carries out today, Innovations also invests in opportunities arising from intellectual property developed at, or associated with, Cambridge University, Oxford University and University College London. These are the top four research intensive universities in Europe with a research income of over £1.3 billion per annum.

Innovations invests in the most promising opportunities from whichever technology sector they arise, but has built particular expertise in the key sectors of: therapeutics, medtech, engineering and materials, and ICT.

During the period from the admission of its shares to trading on AIM in 2006 to 31 January 2014, Innovations has invested a total of £160.9 million across its portfolio companies, which have raised collectively investment of over £750.0 million.

About Abzena - www.abzena.com

Abzena is the new name for the PolyTherics group, and is focused on providing proprietary technologies and value-added services to enable the development of better biopharmaceuticals.

Abzena comprises two wholly owned subsidiary businesses - PolyTherics and Antitope. PolyTherics specializes in proprietary site-specific conjugation technologies for antibody drug conjugate development and solutions for optimization of the therapeutic properties of biopharmaceuticals. Antitope is an industry leader in immunogenicity assessment, protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins and cell line development for manufacture.

Abzena's customers include the majority of the major pharmaceutical R&D companies, many quoted and private biotech companies and leading academic research centres.