Octa Phillip loses fight for Bioxyne

Two Bioxyne (ASX:BXN) directors, including chairman Glenn Crisp, have been ousted from the board during a tension-filled shareholder vote.

Investors yesterday voted to remove Crisp as well as Jeremy Curnock Cook, managing director of Bioxyne's biggest shareholder Octa Phillip Bioscience Managers.

The outcome of the meeting to vote on replacing up to five board members is a indication that work on immunotherapeutic HI 164 will continue.

The future of Bioxyne and its board had been in doubt since the company released disappointing results from a pivotal trial of HI 164 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), showing no clinical benefit across the study group as a whole.

The news had a devastating affect on the company's share price, and left some investors including biggest shareholder Octa Phillip Bioscience Managers calling for the company to cut its losses and cease development of the product.

However, Bioxyne's co-founder and second-biggest shareholder, Phillip Comans, has expressed a desire to continue development of HI 164.

The company will still be able to pursue the market opportunity of the under-65 group where clinical benefit was found, which represents around 27% of the potential market.

Octa Phillip, which owns a 20% stake in Bioxyne, had been pushing to have chairman Ian Mutton and managing director David Radford removed from the board.

Octa Phillip has been publicly expressing concerns over cash burn, mismanagement and conflict of interest. The shareholder meeting was called at its impetus.

The company, which owns 20% of Bioxyne, had nominated Dr Stewart Washer as a replacement.

But shareholders narrowly voted to retain Mutton and Radford, and to refuse Washer a board position.

Comans was conversely calling for the removal of Curnock Cook and Doug Wilson, another director with ties to Octa Phillip. Wilson resigned prior to the meeting.

In a statement yesterday, Octa Phillip Chief Investment Officer Matt McNamara expressed disappointment with the outcome.

“Our intention was to put the brakes on the cash burn and vend another business into Bioxyne to give it new life,” he said.

“Unfortunately the run of fees depleting further shareholders’ equity is now likely to continue and as a 20% shareholder the Bioscience Managers team will have to turn its focus to how we can secure the best returns for our own investors on our Bioxyne investment.”

Bioxyne (ASX:BXN) saw its share price bump by 2.5% to 4.1c – still down from the ~24c it was trading at prior to the publication of the trial results in June – as of 3pm Wednesday.