Switzerland’s Addex Pharmaceuticals has announced plans to raise new funds through an initial public offering on the country’s SWX Swiss Exchange within the next few weeks.
Quite how much Addex is looking to raise with the offering will not be disclosed until the firm reveals all at a press conference in Zurich next month but IPOs on the SWX are usually range from around 50-120 million Swiss francs and Lehman Brothers was named as the global coordinator and bookrunner for the offering. It is clear, however, that the funds will be used to expand on its “world-leading expertise in the discovery and development of allosteric modulators of G-protein coupled receptors”, a new class of drug that alters the effect of endogenous activators on their specific biological targets, particularly GPCRs, and “may offer an improved
therapeutic approach to existing drug treatments”.
Addex’ most advanced drug candidate is ADX10059 and the firm has recently promising data from two Phase Il trials which show that the treatment demonstrated clinically and statistically significant efficacy in both gastro-esophageal reflux disease and migraine. The compound is also been investigated in a Phase II study for acute anxiety and has been joined in Phase II by ADX10061, which is for smoking cessation.
The Geneva-based group added that ADX48621 is currently in Phase I trials and being targeted as a potential novel treatment for depression, anxiety and inflammatory pain and it also working on a number of allosteric modulators of a “clinically-validated GPCR target with potential in the treatment of anxiety and schizophrenia”, which is being developed with Johnson & Johnson’s Ortho-McNeil unit.
