LONDON (Reuters) - Cash-rich Oxford Glycosciences could play a role as consolidator in the fragmented biotechnology industry after listing on Nasdaq last December, its chief executive said.
"It's something we take seriously. We have achieved a Nasdaq listing and reconciled our accounting to the U.S., and one of the reasons was to be a player in the M&A field," Michael Kranda said. .
"We don't have any deals at the moment but it's something we are prepared to do," he told Reuters.
The recent sell-off in biotechnology stocks, which has seen the Nasdaq biotech index fall by half from its peak 12 months ago, could stimulate increased mergers and acquisitions activity across the biotech sector.
"With current market conditions, it is going to be even more topical this year," Kranda said.
OGS -- which specialises in proteomics, or the role of proteins in disease -- raised a total of 190 million pounds net last year from two major fundraisings.
Proteomics is attracting increased attention following the discovery that the human body contains only about 30,000 genes, rather than the 100,000 plus initially expected. That has thrown the spotlight on the 300,000-500,000 proteins as the real key to disease.
The United States is an obvious hunting ground for the company, now that OGS has an acquisition currency in its Nasdaq stock, but Kranda said he would also look elsewhere.
"It's very hard to do a U.S. deal if you don't have the accounting cleaned up, but that doesn't mean we're looking only at the U.S. We'll look at opportunities globally."... |
