MorEx Development Partners, LLP Closes £3.4m Private Placement
LONDON, UK--November 11, 2008 Elixir Securities is pleased to announce that it has closed a £3.4m financing between newly-formed MorEx Development Partners, LLP ("MDP") and an investor group led by Stephens Investments. MDP will be focused on the clinical development of a novel new radiosensitiser, MorEx. The product was in-licensed from privately-owned Morvus Technology Ltd in a concurrent transaction. MDP will retain key development personnel from Morvus who will guide the development of MorEx through late pre-clinical studies into first in man clinical trials.
MDP has appointed Professor John Caldwell as Chairman of a Management Board comprising representatives from both Morvus and Stephens. Professor Caldwell is Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Liverpool and sits on numerous national and international government and industrial advisory committees. He is also a Director of several UK healthcare companies.
MorEx is a novel new radiation sensitiser which has potential as an adjuvant in first line radiation therapy. Such treatment is administered in as many as 66% of cancer cases, equating to some 100,000 treatments every day. MorEx has shown strong therapeutic enhancement in pre-clinical studies and may be used to either amplify the effect of radiotherapy, or reduce dose-limiting radiation damage to normal tissue. MorEx will be developed initially for the treatment of metastatic brain tumours.
Commenting on the transaction, Steve Cox, CEO of Elixir Securities said: "We are delighted that we have been able to apply our expertise in private financings to arrive at a deal which precisely meets the requirements of both the investor and the developer: The investor is able to focus its investment on the asset that it prefers and retain the expert input of the developer, while Morvus is able to advance its most important asset expeditiously. We are especially pleased that we have been able to dem onstrate that such transactions can transcend the difficult economic conditions which we presently face."
CONTACT:
Steve Cox (+ 44 (0) 20 7194 7733
About Elixir
Elixir Securities ("Elixir") is a London-based corporate finance
business specializing in the global med-tech, healthcare, biotech and
biofuels sectors. Elixir's capabilities are aligned with the sector-specific
financial challenges which these companies face and include: Public and
Private Placements, PIPEs, Secondary Offerings, Pre-IPO Financing, Management
Buyouts/ins, Corporate Turnarounds and "Buy-and-Build" Acquisition
Strategies.