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news.Anticancer drugs developer GPC Biotech has acquired the material assets of Axxima Pharmaceuticals, a kinase drug discovery firm based in Munich, Germany, which filed for insolvency in December 2004.
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Axxima’s assets were transferred to a newly formed holding company in which certain investors injected an additional net E8.7 million in cash. GPC Biotech will purchase the holding company in a cash neutral transaction for E13.7 million by issuing approximately 1.3 million new shares at a price of E10.47.
“This strategic acquisition is enabling us to add important expertise in the area of kinase-based drug discovery at a very favorable price,” said Dr Bernd Seizinger, CEO of GPC Biotech. “We believe this acquisition will assist us in achieving our longer-term goal of further growing our drug pipeline with novel mechanism-based therapies to treat cancer.”
Axxima Pharmaceuticals was a drug discovery company which started operations in Martinsried in 1998 and was founded by a group of scientists including a former leading scientist at Genentech. Axxima had raised a total of more than E50 million since its inception and was focusing initially on infectious diseases and over the last years on cancer.
GPC Biotech will receive all of Axxima’s patents, patent applications and know-how as well as several early-stage drug discovery programs in the areas of cancer. Additional preclinical and early clinical programs in infectious disease will also be transferred to GPC Biotech and might be partnered going forward.