4D Pharma gobbles up Biomar production assets

4D Pharma announced a major acquisition on Friday, gobbling up the production assets of Spanish-based contract research organisation Biomar.

The AIM-traded pharmaceutical company, which focuses on the development of live biotherapeutics, said Biomar had been working as an outsourced development partner since 2014.

4D’s board said Biomar had initially focused on research into marine microorganisms and their use in pharmaceutical, bio-energy and food production. In 2001 it expanded into microbial fermentation, providing contract services in the field and expanding its production capacity to 3,000 litres in 2010.

The firm had been working with Biomar on several development projects generated by the MicroRx platform, as well as providing a secondary or back-up facility for both the Thetanix and Blautix programmes.

A newly incorporated Spanish subsidiary, 4D Pharma León, will acquire the relevant business assets from Biomar and take a lease at its premises in León. Of the current Biomar staff, 13 will move to 4D León as part of the transaction with a further five staff to be recruited in the coming months.

Consideration for the acquisition was set at €3m payable on completion, with €2m of that being paid in cash. The remainder would be satisfied by the issue of 83,249 shares in 4D at a price of £9.805.

An additional €3m was set to become payable, dependent on GMP certification in respect of the production of live biotherapeutics at the León facility.

"Over the past 12 months, we have witnessed first-hand the issues of relying on third party providers for the production of our product for clinical and development programmes. As our pace of development continues, with more of our programmes moving towards the clinic, 4D needs continued access to its own facilities to meet the challenges of our ambitious clinical development programmes, but also in looking forward to our initial production requirements,” said 4D’s chief scientific officer Alex Stevenson.

“Over the last 18 months we have worked closely with Biomar and have been impressed not only with their technical knowledge, but also their willingness to work as part of a team and advance the understanding of this new field. We felt that both the facility and team would be an ideal fit for 4D, providing continuous access to facilities under our control but also importantly the ability to expand."

At 1630 BST, shares in 4D Pharma were down 1.01% at 965.2p.