Company Profile

Pharmaprojects provides comprehensive profiles on all of the companies that are currently involved in pharmaceutical R&D from our sister publication Scrip Pharmaceutical Companies Fact File.

Each profile includes corporate information, company description, contact details, M&A and joint venture agreements, financial and more.

Company profile data appears courtesy of Scrip's Pharmaceutical Companies Fact File

Antisoma

Antisoma plc	Established 1988
West Africa House	Ownership Public
Hanger Lane	Chief Shareholder Leventis Holdings (19%)
London	Research Focus Biotechnology
W5 3QR
UK

Phone Number	+44 20 8799 8200
Fax Number	+44 20 8799 8201
E-Mail Address	enquiries@antisoma.com
Web Address	www.antisoma.com

Licensing contact

Nicholas Adams, Director, Business Development
Phone: +44 20 8799 8200
E-mail: nicholas.adams@antisoma.com

The company

Antisoma develops novel products for cancer treatment. It uses its antibody development experience to produce safer and more effective tumour targeting therapies for commercialisation by pharmaceutical partners. The company acquires development rights to product candidates through partnerships with academic or cancer research institutions.

Mergers & acquisitions

2002	December	Roche acquires a 9% interest in Antisoma for CHF9 million
2004	June	BVF Partners acquires an interest in 8,500,000 ordinary 1p shares in the company representing 3.19% of Antisoma's current issued ordinary share capital
2005	January	Antisoma is to buy Aptamera for around GBP 11.5 million in stock in a move to gain access to its novel aptamer drug, AGRO100 (Scrip s00869250). COMPLETED FEBRUARY 2005 (Scrip S00871922)

Operating locations/subsidiaries

Cancer Therapeutics Ltd (originally a joint-venture with ICRT)

Agreements

2002	Roche	for a broad strategic alliance granting Roche exclusive worldwide rights to the Antisoma pipeline of oncology products. This alliance will use the established development, manufacturing and commercial capabilities of Roche to facilitate the rapid commercialisation of Antisoma's promising oncology drugs. Agents covered by the agreement include Pemtumomab and also Therex, TheraFab and DMXAA that are currently in Phase I clinical trials. CONCLUDED JANUARY 2003, triggering upfront payments of approx. $43 million
2003	Assay Designs	(previously through Aptamera) in March, to bring new tumour-cell staining technology to the market for academic and corporate researchers in the fight against cancer
	ML Laboratories	in July, granting Antisoma the right to use ML's Ubiquitous Chromatin Opening Elements (UCOE) gene expression technology in a research programme to accelerate and improve expression of a number of Antisoma's preclinical product candidates
	Archemix	previously through Aptamera) in August, for a product development and licence deal for the investigational anticancer drug, AGRO100. Archemix, the exclusive holder of rights to the SELEX portfolio for aptamer therapeutics, will provide a non-exclusive licence to aptamer technology for therapeutic issues of AGRO100 and AGRO100 derivatives. Archemix will provide expertise and know-how in support of these programmes
	Cytogen Corporation	in September, whereby Antisoma acquires certain royalty rights to Cytogen's lead product, R1549 (formerly Pemtumomab) in exchange for a cash payment of US$0.5 million. Antisoma also agrees to make an additional payment of $0.5 million upon the first commercial sale, if any, of its R1549 product. In return, Cytogen relinquished its right to receive royalties equivalent to 1.65% of net sales revenues (Scrip S00815640)
	Cancer Research Technology	in September, to in-license a programme of telomerase inhibitors. Antisoma obtains rights to a number of existing molecules and an option on further telomerase inhibitors over the next three years
2004	Inverness Medical Switzerland (Inverness Medical Innovations)	in May, for the acquisition of certain royalty rights from Inverness Medical Switzerland. These rights relate to any products based on the mouse and humanised variants of the antibody HMFG1, which form the basis of the drugs R-1549 and R-1550, respectively. Antisoma is making an immediate cash payment of $300,000 to Inverness. Antisoma will make further payments totalling $1,500,000 subject to R-1549 reaching key milestones on the path to commercialisation. In return, Inverness has relinquished its right to receive any royalty payments from Antisoma for products based on HMFG1 antibodies
	EMD Lexigen	in july, wherebt Antisoma gains exclusive rights over the drug BC1-IL12 and will now accelerate the agent's development. This follows Antisoma's acquisition of EMD Lexigen's half stake in the programme through the licensing of technology. BC1-IL12, which will now be known as AS-1409, is an ATTACK (Antitumour Therapy with Targeting Antibodies and CytoKines) agent made using Lexigen's 'immunocytokine' technology to combine the cytokine IL12 with Antisoma's tumour-targeting antibody BC1 (pr 26-07-04)
2005	Raylo chemicals (Degussa)	in March, for the manufacture of AS1411 (formerly AGRO100) (pr 14-03-05)

Financial figures


Summary (GBP million)
Year ended Jun	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
Revenues	6.27	18.12	11.84	2.18	3.32	1.50
R&D expenditure	-	16.58	-	11.90	9.21	6.47
Operating profit (loss)	(11.12)	(3.13)	(5.38)	(16.56)	(9.30)	(8.10)
Net profit (loss)	(7.14)	(0.61)	(3.30)	(13.20)	(8.66)	(7.90)
EPS	(2.44)	(0.25)	(0.02)	(0.11)	(0.10)	(0.11)
Net assets	38.28	29.49	15.99	15.14	6.24	3.54

In November 2003, Antisoma announced plans to raise GBP15.2 million before expenses through the sale of new shares on the London Stock Exchange, in part to fund the future acquisition of products and fill out its pipeline (Scrip S00824690).

In December 2005, Antisoma raised approximately GBP6.55 million (approx $11 million) before expenses through an oversubscribed placing of new ordinary shares. The shares were placed by ING with new and existing institutional investors in the UK and Continental Europe (Press Release, Antisoma, 5 Dec 2005)

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