transformative deal, page-13

BIOSIGNAL
Biosignal will sell the intellectual property over its anti-biofilm technology to Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc and is finalizing a major acquisition. Biosignal said the sale was dependent on shareholder approval and would include the issue of an unstated number of Biosignal shares at three cents a share to Commonwealth Biotechnologies as well as the receipt of an undisclosed number of Commonwealth Biotechnologies shares at $US1.00 a share to Biosignal. Biosignal director Tim Boyd told Biotech Daily that the deal was not a merger but the sale of the technology. Mr Boyd said the moves would be transformative for Biosignal. Pharmaust announced last year that it had sold its majority shareholding in Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc to Hong Kong-listed Venturepharm Laboratories for more than $3.5 million (BD: Sep 15, 2008). Pharmaust said at the time that the “investment has made no contribution to the group fiscally since its acquisition and … recently reported an increased loss for the last full financial year. In April 2008, Pharmaust said the registration process for Commonwealth Biotechnologies “was expected to take some time and was not expected to be straight forward as, since the resignation of Paul D’Sylva, relations with the board of Commonwealth Biotechnologies have not proved cooperative”. A former managing director of Pharmaust, Dr D’Sylva remains a director of Commonwealth Biotechnologies and although not a director of Biosignal is believed to be the principal of Empire Investments which acquired control of Biosignal through its dominance on the board (BD: May 6, 21, 28, 2009).
Biosignal said today that the Nasdaq-listed Commonwealth Biotechnologies had an agreement to acquire GL Biochem Shanghai, described as “China’s largest speciality peptide synthetic chemistry [contract research organization]”. Biosignal said GL Biochem and its associated companies had revenues of more than $US14million and profit after tax of $US2 million. Commonwealth Biotechnologies’ director and chief operating officer Richard Freer said his company had the “skills required to rapidly commercialize the Biosignal [intellectual property]”. Mr Freer said GL Biochem would assist in bringing the technology closer to market. Mr Boyd said the transaction would see the development costs of anti-microbial film being “met by a well-established contract research company, with Biosignal shareholders being exposed to the upside through a cornerstone shareholding in Commonwealth Biotechnologies”. Biosignal climbed 0.6 cents or 40 percent to 2.1 cents with 1.2 million shares traded.