Biotech firm Bivictrix Therapeutics is the latest company to exit the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, citing difficulties in raising funds compared to its privately-owned competitors.
The company, which is headquartered in Macclesfield, said it would not be able to raise enough capital to advance its medication to a clinical trial via London’s junior market and that its listed-status was limiting its ability to explore more favourable funding opportunities with a US investment bank.
Bivictrix added that it didn’t believe its current market capitalisation reflected “the positive achievements nor the underlying prospects” of the business and that this was hindering its growth potential.
Bosses said they had been inspired by recent examples of similar companies running successful funding rounds in the private market, including Myricx Bio which announced last month it had raised £90m to take its programmes into the clinic.
Tiffany Thorn, chief executive of Bivictrix, said: “With a growing pipeline of novel, first-in-class bispecific Antibody Drug Conjugates, together with a highly competitive platform in one of the most commercially attractive sectors across the entirety of the oncology drug development market, Bivictrix is well positioned to capitalise on its already strong foundations.
“To maintain our competitive advantage within this space, we intend to progress our pipeline and platform expeditiously, and after extensive review, the Board has concluded that this will be best achieved by the Company delisting from AIM and re-registering as a private company.
I’m immensely proud of everything Bivictrix has achieved to date. Yet the board has concluded that the current public market valuation does not reflect the scale of our potential.”
The directors believe that, as a private company, Bivictrix is likely to have access to a larger quantum of future funding, to enable the business to meet key value inflection points.”
We therefore believe the cancellation is in the best interest of shareholders and the future of our business as a whole.”