A BELFAST company specialising in gene therapies for cancers and other conditions has announced a £3 million London stock market share placing to expand its work to include possible Covid-19 treatments.
Fusion Antibodies, founded 20 years ago in the labs at Queen's University, will also use funds for existing oncology work and general working capital.
In a statement to the markets, the Aim-listed research firm said it will issue 3.3 million new shares at 90p each in two tranches.
Demand for the shares came from both existing shareholders and new investors, with the placing oversubscribed.
And to satisfy demand, Fusion said a further 547,235 existing ordinary shares which were subject to lock-in and orderly market agreements were sold on behalf of selling shareholders to investors at the placing price.
The new shares account for 13 per cent of the issued share capital of the company.
Shareholders will need to approve £1 million of the share placing at a general meeting due to take place on May 15.
The firm's founder and chief executive Dr Paul Kerr said: “We're delighted to be able to announce this oversubscribed placing which will help us in our critical work.
“In these currently extremely challenging times, we now have the resources to undertake the additional proof-of-concept work on the mammalian antibody library discovery platform in respect of Covid-19, as well as for our existing oncology targets, whilst continuing to support our clients in their vital role.”
He added: “We remain confident that our products and services can help to accelerate finding a solution to this global health crisis.”
In a statement last month Fusion Antibodies confirmed there had been only a limited impact on its trading performance as a result of the pandemic and it remains fully operational.
The company, which specialises in pre-clinical antibody discovery, engineering and supply for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications, expects revenues for the year ending March 31 to be significantly ahead of current market expectations, and above the previous year (£2.2 million).
Fusion's share price opened at 118p yesterday, but dropped on news of the fresh stock issue.
