CAMBRIDGE, U.K., Oct. 31, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Astex Technology Ltd, the fragment-based drug discovery company, today announced that it is to merge with Berlin-based oncology specialist, metaGen Pharmaceuticals GmbH. As a result of this transaction, the Company has improved its cash position by 23m ($39m), consisting of funds resulting from the metaGen merger and investment by Astex's existing investors.
Under the terms of the merger Astex will acquire metaGen's shares in an all-share transaction and existing metaGen shareholders, Schering AG (FSE:SCH) (NYSE:SHR), Apax Partners' Funds and HVB (HypoVereinsbank) Funds will become shareholders in Astex. At the same time, the current investors in Astex (Abingworth Management Ltd., Oxford Bioscience Partners, Advent International Corp., Alta Partners, and GIMV) are investing 8m.
Astex CEO, Timothy Haines, said, "The opportunity to merge with metaGen was compelling given that it provides Astex with the key assets to fuel the next stage of our growth including cancer drug development capabilities and a broader cash basis. In addition, it builds on our existing relationship with Schering, following the signing of our multi-target drug discovery collaboration in April 2003 and adds another blue-chip venture capital investor in Apax Partners to our current eminent group."
Astex will consolidate metaGen's existing capabilities in its Cambridge facilities. The combined company will have additional resources and sufficient cash reserves to continue to progress and expand on Astex's pioneering advances in fragment-based drug discovery and to effectively utilise metaGen's capabilities in cancer biology.
Peter Fellner, Chairman of Astex, said, "This merger, and the linked financing, enables Astex to further develop its powerful and highly competitive drug discovery technologies and it will strengthen our valuable partnership with Schering AG."
About Astex
Astex is a fragment-based drug discovery company pioneering the use of high-throughput X-ray crystallography for the rapid identification of novel drug candidates. The Company's unique fragment-based drug discovery approach, termed Pyramida, utilizes protein crystal structures to detect the binding of drug fragments, which are then optimized into potent lead compounds. Facilitating this approach is Astex's integrated drug discovery platform, which covers all aspects of structure-based drug discovery including protein production, crystallization, structure determination, bioinformatics, computational and medicinal chemistry and biology and DMPK. Astex is focusing its drug discovery approaches on proprietary and public domain protein targets from families and/or pathways. This includes validated kinases, phosphatases and proteases implicated in human disease. Astex has drug discovery collaborations with Schering AG, AstraZeneca, Mitsubishi Pharma and with the Institute of Cancer Research, UK and Cancer Research Technology. The Company has further research agreements with another large pharmaceutical company and structural biology research collaborations with AstraZeneca, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Mitsubishi Pharma and Fujisawa Pharma focused on solving novel cytochrome P450 crystal structures.
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