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Mergers and Acquisitions

Date: 2017-12-23

Type of information: Company acquisition

Acquired company: Discuva (UK)

Acquiring company: Summit (UK)

Amount: £10 million

Terms:

  • • On December 23, 2017, Summit Therapeutics, a drug discovery and development company advancing therapies for rare diseases and infectious diseases, announced it has obtained an innovative research and development platform for the generation of differentiated antibiotic compounds through its acquisition of Discuva, a privately held UK-based company.
  • Under the terms of the acquisition, Summit acquired 100% of the issued share capital of Discuva. The consideration to Discuva shareholders comprised of £5.0 million in cash and £5.0 million in new ordinary shares of Summit of one penny nominal value issued to Discuva shareholders at a price of 170.4 pence per share, representing a 3.3% premium to Summit's mid-market closing share price on 22 December 2017. The 2,934,272 New Ordinary Shares have been allotted and application for their admission to trading on AIM has been made with dealings expected to begin on or about 29 December 2017. The New Ordinary Shares represent approximately 3.99% of the Company's enlarged issued share capital. Summit has acquired Discuva on a cash-free/debt-free basis. No Discuva personnel will be joining the Summit board of directors.
  • Under a collaboration agreement that Discuva has with Roche, Roche is obligated to pay specified development, commercialisation and sales milestone payments related to any compound developed under the platform that is or has been optioned by Roche. Summit is obligated to pay to Discuva shareholders one-half of the economic benefit of any such payments received from Roche. Separately, certain employees, former employees and former directors of Discuva are eligible for payments from Discuva based on specified development and clinical milestones related to proprietary product candidates developed under the platform.
  • All of Discuva's shareholders have undertaken not to dispose of any of the ordinary shares of Summit acquired in connection with the transaction until September 2018, subject to limited exceptions, and have agreed to adhere to orderly market undertaking provisions with respect to the potential sale of any ordinary shares for up to a further 12 months. The Discuva shareholders have provided certain warranties to Summit, subject to a range of limitations as to time and amount.
  • The Company's cash runway guidance remains unchanged, as Summit believes its existing cash and cash equivalents will fund the Company's activities through 31 December 2018.

Details:

  • Summit is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialisation of novel medicines for indications for which there are no existing or only inadequate therapies. Summit is conducting clinical programs focused on Duchenne muscular dystrophy and C. difficile infection. The acquisition expands Summit's interests in infectious diseases that are led by its flagship precision C. difficile infection antibiotic candidate ridinilazole.
  • Discuva's proprietary bacterial genetics-based platform facilitates the discovery and development of novel, differentiated antibiotics. This platform combines transposon technology with bioinformatics to create a powerful tool to identify new antibacterial drug targets, elucidate antibiotic mechanisms of action and optimise against bacterial resistance to generate new antibiotic drug candidates.
  • Discuva's principal asset is a genetics-based technology platform for the generation of antibiotics. The platform is utilising proprietary libraries of multiple pathogens associated with antibiotic resistance. These provide excellent coverage against the ESKAPE pathogens, a leading cause of multi-drug resistance and hospital acquired infections throughout the world, and pathogens listed as urgent or serious threats by the US Centers for Disease Control. With activity demonstrated against a number of these bacterial targets, and a research collaboration between Discuva and Roche, the platform has already shown promise.
   

Related: Infectious diseases

Is general: Yes