EvoGenix to list on ASX in August

Antibody therapeutics company EvoGenix will open its initial public offering within a week and list on the ASX in early to mid-August, with the aim of raising AUD$9 million.

The IPO is fully underwritten by Lodge Partners and the company will issue 36 million shares at $0.25 per share.

"The key point about EvoGenix is that we're focused on revenues," said EvoGenix' CEO and managing director, Merilyn Sleigh.

Asked why EvoGenix chose to list in the current capital raising market, which has not been favourable to other biotechs, Sleigh said: "We have a different story to most biotechs, so we believed we'd be able to attract the interest."

EvoGenix formally acquired California-based Absalus in April after a strategic alliance of 11 months, and in doing so consolidated its technology platform. EvoGenix' platform covers the development of murine monoclonal antibodies with higher binding affinities to therapeutic targets, using accelerated evolution, and the conversion of murine antibodies to safe, humanised form.

"We take mouse antibodies and put them through our platform to humanise them," said Sleigh.

Absalus also brought another interesting platform technology to EvoGenix' IP portfolio: a small peptide, native to human mitochondria, which can be used to kill cancerous cells by apoptosis -- programmed cell death.

Sleigh said that so far as she was aware, EvoGenix is the only company in the world that is commercialising a platform technology combining antibody humanisation, optimisation and conjugation.

The company will use the capital from the IPO to progress the three products it has in the pipeline. The first is EGX-010, a modified, second generation growth factor to prevent bone loss. It is expected to enter the final stages of testing and ready to out-licensed in 2006. The second, EGX-020, is an antibody for treating respiratory disease, and it should be ready by the beginning of 2007. The third, EGX-030, is an anti-cancer antibody for treating primary liver cancer which should be ready by the end of 2007, said Sleigh.

"We think of our technology as an engine," Sleigh said, with drugs being churned out at a rate of one per year at an average cost of $2-3 million to develop.

In that sense, Sleigh believes that up front payments from the products EvoGenix is developing will more than cover the costs of developing them and the company will then receive revenue from royalties and milestones once the products reach the market.

However, the company has its sights set on an "even more rapid source" of revenue, namely working with large pharmaceutical companies interested in licensing some or all of EvoGenix' technology enabling them to take products into the clinical phase or with smaller biotech companies interested in a service model where EvoGenix takes one or two of the smaller company's antibodies and develops them, Sleigh said.

EvoGenix is in "substantial discussions" with possible partners and the company hopes to sign up at least one deal by the end of the year, said Sleigh.

The company expects to have a market capitalisation of more than $32 million on listing.