Oxford BioMedica spurns takeover approach

pharmafile | August 21, 2008 | News story | Sales and Marketing Oxford BioMedica, biotech 

Oxford BioMedica has unanimously rejected two takeover offers from GeneThera, saying the US firm was "not a credible bidder".

The UK biotech's board said the first unsolicited approach was not in the interests of its shareholders and a second proposal regarding an all-share offer was also rebuffed after Oxford BioMedica consulted with its advisors JPMorgan Cazenove and Rothschild.

Shares in Oxford BioMedica, which specialises in cancer immunotherapy and gene-based therapies and was spun out of Oxford University in 1995, had risen sharply at news of the appraoches.

GeneThera provides genetic diagnostics for the veterinary and agricultural industries and has made no secret of its wish to buy a biotech company in order to catapult itself into the human DNA vaccine market.

The firm's board says it is now "evaluating its available options". It had looked at ten companies, predominantly in the UK, before deciding to approach the Oxford firm.

Last year Oxford BioMedica, which has 85 staff, was on the acquisition trail itself, expanding its product pipeline with the £16 million purchase of fellow Oxford-based biotech Oxxon Therapeutics.

Oxxon's Hi-8 MEL vaccine targets melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, which Oxford BioMedica's own multiple-cancer vaccine TroVax cannot treat.

There has already been significant activity in the UK biotech sector this year, with Sanofi-Aventis buying Acambis in a deal which valued the firm at £276 million.

The pharma giant had been thought to be looking at Oxford BioMedica, with which it had also been working closely. The companies have a global development and commercialisation deal on TroVax, but the drug recently failed to reach a primary endpoint in a late-stage trial for renal cancer.

Before being snubbed, Oxford BioMedica had suggested it may be able to restart the trial using its own technology. TroVax remains in phase III, while Oxford BioMedica also has three other products in clinical development, including ProSavin, a novel gene-based treatment for Parkinson's disease, which is in a phase I/II trial.

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