Horizon Discovery Share Discussion Threads

[mirabeau] 27/3/2014 14:31

'Horizon Discovery announced its intention to float on AIM on 27 February, setting out to raise £25m. Following strong demand from institutional investors, it announced on 24 March it raised a total of £68.6m.'

[nurdin] 27/3/2014 13:57

I have dipped my toe here...cheers Mike for the heads up

[mirabeau] 27/3/2014 13:56

Horizon share reach £2.10 as Cambridge company starts trading on AIM

Written byTHE BUSINESS DESK

By lunchtime today, shares in newly floated Horizon Discovery were sitting at £2.10, after the launch price of £1.80.

The Cambridge life science company, which supplies research tools for drug discovery, saw its share placing up to seven times oversubscribed prior to this morning when the shares began public trading on AIM.

The placing raised £68.6 million from institutional investors, valuing the company at more than £120m.

Dr Darrin Disley, CEO, said: "Our listing today and the funds raised will fuel Horizon Discovery's ambition to become the global leader in the provision of Life Science research tools that enable the understanding of the genetic basis of disease and the development of personalised medicines.

"We very much look forward to accelerating growth across all areas of the business, driving shareholder value through the deployment of our platform via a flexible and leveraged business model and accessing new global markets and supporting our customers."

*Don't miss our feature interview with Dr Disley in Tuesday's Business supplement in the News.

Read more: hxxp://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Business/Business-News/Horizon-share-reach-210-as-Cambridge-company-starts-trading-on-AIM-20140327132526.htm#ixzz2xAgVMZCo

[simon gordon] 27/3/2014 13:00

I had my DNA digitised in 2012 at 23andMe, cost a couple of hundred pounds.

I then wanted analysis of any polymorphisms on specific genes involved in liver detoxification and histamine function.

I took my DNA database and downloaded it onto a website which charged $20.00 to deduce the results for these specific genes, process took seconds.

I then took this report to a genetic nutritionist in California who I spoke to over SKYPE as he went through the report, he then gave me a written report on how to aid the metabolism that was being impinged by the polymorphisms.

FDA recently suspended health DNA tests, you can only now do ancestry testing, hopefully they will open up the health angle again. Maybe they are concerned that some people were freaking out when they found they had polymorphisms that could mean cancer, etc.



My whole DNA now sits in my laptop.

[mirabeau] 27/3/2014 12:58

I've only bought a few but I like the fact that AstraZeneca have moved all their UK operations to Cambridge and have signed 2 collaboration deals with Horizon totaling +$100m in milestone payments etc.

Astra-Zeneca obviously see something special at Horizon..I can see this partnership flourishing in the coming months and years

M

[mikeja] 27/3/2014 12:53

Actually raised £40m

[mirabeau] 27/3/2014 12:44

Horizon Discovery's long held ambitions to list on the stock markets are set to become a reality within the month following an announcement that it intends to launch an initial public offering on London's Alternative Investment Market and raise £25 million though an offering of new shares.

Led by the effervescent Darrin Disley, Horizon Discovery is one of those rare biotech companies that started generating revenues early on its life and was able to grow them rapidly – it claims a revenues increase in the last year of over 70 per cent – around £6.6m – and a compound annual growth rate of 126 per cent from 2007 to 2013.

Staff numbers have grown fast in the last five years too and it expects to be employing around 100 by the end of the year, but more money is need to maintain its actual growth trajectory. An IPO has always been the plan according to Disley and after delaying for a final close of external funding as it waited for better capital market conditions he gets his wish.

Horizon was founded in 2005 by Dr Chris Torrance and Professor Alberto Bardelli and has since received around £20m of funding. Notable investors include Genentech, Roche, Cambridge University and the duo that founded the $1bn valued biotech, Abcam, Dr Jonathan Milner and Dr David Cleevely.

The basis of the Horizon's offering is its own translational genomics platform, GENESIS, a suite of gene editing tools that together with expertise in the genetic drivers of disease have led to the development of an extensive catalogue of human isogenic cell line pairs that accurately model the disease-causing genetic anomalies found in human diseases.

These are sold as X MAN, Horizon's flagship product, a disease modelling line – or 'patients-in-a-test-tube' – that Horizon believes has the potential to bring down the costs and accelerate the process of drug discovery. Friendly terms for academia has seen it go into top universities across the world while major pharmaceuticals have come in initially because of its ability to accurately model disease-causing mutations in cancer patients.

Today Horizon has a customer base that's closing in on 800 organisations world wide, operating in markets it claims will total in excess of £29 billion by 2015, including translational genomics research, cell based assays, molecular diagnostics market, and biopharmaceutical production.

It has a blue chip customer base that includes AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Jannsen Pharmaceuticals, Merck & Co., Novartis and Takeda, while leveraged R&D potential future milestones payments currently total approximately £120 million.

"Horizon Discovery is at a very exciting stage in its development where investments made into the scale up of its three commercial units will accelerate growth, transforming the company into a global market-leader in translational genomics research tools," said Disley.

"The personalised medicine market is growing rapidly and Horizon is poised to capitalise on this through flexible and leveraged deployment of its GENESIS gene editing and X MAN cell line platforms with customers operating at all stages of the healthcare paradigm.

Backed by the £25m it hopes to raise and the raised profile and credibility that an IPO can bring, Horizon's priorities are to increase sales and marketing for its existing products while rapidly growing new commercial offerings through its own product development, third party licensing and mergers and acquisitions. Its IP portfolio in gene editing will also be grown while it seeks to add therapeutic area expertise beyond cancer.

"An IPO further enhances the profile of Horizon Discovery, facilitating the expansion of our sales and distribution channels, expansion of our product lines and increasing opportunities to engage in leveraged R&D," said Disley. "It also allows us to acquire additional IP and commercial offerings, including sales channels that will enhance our geographic reach."

[mirabeau] 27/3/2014 07:49

'Dealers expect shares of Cambridge drug discovery pioneer Horizon Discovery to attract buyers at the placing price of 180p when dealings get under way on AIM today. Allenby Capital says that eight new entrants to the junior market raised £435million in February – the largest monthly raise by new joiners since December 2007.'

[mirabeau] 24/3/2014 09:41

Horizon in cancer pact with AZ

08.01.2014 - AstraZeneca is set to pay €88m for access to three genome editing technologies for finding new cancer targets.

AstraZeneca will expand its oncology pipeline using Horizon Discovery's know-how in switching off cancer genes in patient cell lines by means of three genome editing technologies. Within the up to US$88m research and licencing deal, the Cambridge-based biotech company will query a defined set of cancer genotypes for synthetic lethality. This deal is the second collaboration between the Dutch-British pharma giant and Horizon, and follows the announcement in April 2013 of an oncology discovery programme to explore Horizon's first-in-class kinase target program, HD-001.

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[mirabeau] 24/3/2014 09:40

Monday, 22 April 2013 08:45 Tony Quested

$100m AstraZeneca blockbuster for Horizon

Dr Darrin M Disley

Cambridge UK personalised medicines pioneer Horizon Discovery has landed a $100 million blockbuster deal with global pharma giant AstraZeneca.
And the initial programme could trigger annual multimillion dollar hauls for Horizon on top of the upfront windfall.

The bonanza for Horizon is another major show of faith by AZ in the Cambridge technology cluster having recently decided to bring its global HQ to the city with the advent of 2,000 jobs.

Given the disclosure of $75m in clinical and approval milestones, Business Weekly believes that – based on benchmarking to other first-in-class oncology drug discovery programs – Horizon might expect to attract total payments of circa $100m plus low to middle single digit royalties on future drug sales.


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[mirabeau] 24/3/2014 09:35

Monday, 24 March 2014 07:25

Horizon makes history with AIM record $113m IPO

Dr Darrin Disley, CEO Horizon Discovery

Cambridge medical technology pioneer Horizon Discovery is set to create UK stockmarket history with a significantly oversubscribed AIM IPO this week.

The personalised medicines specialist is expected to be admitted to AIM this Thursday (March 27) with a market cap of £120.5 million after raising £68.6m ($113m) from institutional investors against an original target of £25m.

The raising comprises £40m for the company before expenses and the sale of £28.6m of sale shares at a price of 180p per share. The outcome compares favourably with the very best results achieved globally in any biotech IPO of recent times.

City sources suggest that the placing – conducted by Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited – was around six-seven times oversubscribed compared to the original £25 million target.

The scale of the IPO also mows down several previous records for a Cambridge biotech float. It is the largest in terms of funds raised by any Cambridge Cluster biotech on AIM and equal fifth largest in the all-time list of placings on the main, international main and AIM markets.


It is also the largest non-therapeutic company raising on any London market behind Oxford Glychosciences. The stunning success of the float is further underlined by the fact that the result has been achieved with the founders only being diluted 5 in 1 and early shareholders, including the University of Cambridge, having realised significant cash returns in pre-IPO place-outs – that's a flotation outcome for the entrepreneurs that will rarely, if ever, be matched.

Horizon beat MedImmune and others last week to win Business Weekly's BioMedTech Business of the Year Award and CEO Dr Darrin Disley received the award from AstraZeneca executive Shaun Grady.

In a neat piece of symmetry the previous biggest Cambridge biotech IPO on AIM was by Cambridge Antibody Technology, which raised £43m in 1997 shortly after being acquired by AZ and soon after CAT won our Business of the Year title.

Next biggest Cambridge biotech AIM float was Chiroscience's £33.6m in 1994, followed by Abcam's £15m in 2005.

Dr Disley, whose company makes its AIM bow under the ticker symbol HZD, is quoted today in a pre-IPO impact statement to London Stock Exchange. He said: "Horizon's aim is to become a global market-leader in the provision of life science research tools that enable the elucidation of the genetic basis of disease and the development of personalised medicines that deliver better outcomes for patients.

"The company builds upon a strong commercial performance since inception and the listing of our shares is expected to unlock and deliver significant value to all shareholders moving forward.

"We are very excited by the enthusiasm shown by over 60 incoming investors and the significant oversubscription for the placing at the top of our target valuation range.

"We believe this demonstrates a strong understanding of the value of our technology platform and support of its flexible deployment via a powerful business model that combines the sale of differentiated products and services that drive revenue growth and leveraged R&D programs generating future milestones and product royalties.

"We are looking forward to joining the AIM market and we wish to thank our investors for their continued and fresh support."