The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

In this week’s biotech deal review, some stimulus money finds its way to biotech, some M&A finds its way to shareholders’ votes, the NRC-BRI finds its way to two deals, and Patheon finds itself entering a new fiscal year a bit less burdened.  Even some securities may find their way into the market…

Government at Work

• Enerkem Inc.‘s U.S. affiliate Enerkem Corporation has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive US$50 million in funding for the construction and operation of its waste-to-biofuels facility in Pontotoc, Mississippi. Enerkem’s application was one of four selected in the larger project category of the Recovery Act – Demonstration of Integrated Biorefinery Operations Program. Enerkem Corporation will build the facility, which will produce 300 million gallons of ethanol annually from sorted municipal waste. The project is also expected to create approximately 130 jobs.
• Warnex Inc. (TSX: WNX) announced that its Thunder Bay subsidiary, Warnex PRO-DNA Services Inc., is the recipient of funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation for the development of the MitoNorth Database.  Warnex says this will be the first forensic mitochondrial-DNA database in Canada.  The project is being done in collaboration with the Paleo-DNA laboratory at Lakehead University.
• SemBioSys Genetics Inc. (TSX: SBS) picked up a $400,000 milestone for its AVAC collaboration this week.

Sales Season!

• Winnipeg-based company Intelligent Hospital Systems scored a win when the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco (UCSF) purchased three RIVA Systems for the robotic filling of I.V. bags and syringes. The RIVA System reduces patient I.V. admixture errors.
• Electronic medical record application service provider Nightingale Informatix Corporation (TSXV: NGH) announced it will provide its electronic medical record system hosted on eHealth to all three Uptown Health Center integrated medical clinic locations. Nightingale is predicting $200,000 in revenue over the term.

Securities

• Sonomax Hearing Healthcare Inc. (TSXV: SHH) corrected its announcement from a couple of weeks ago, noting that directors and officers got 8,044,375 options, not 8,644,375.
• International Bio Recovery Corporation (TSXV: IBR), a developer of fertility products, is increasing its non-brokered private placement to up to 25,000,000 units at $0.10 per unit (one common share plus one 2-year $0.125 warrant). The warrant expiry can be accelerated if  IBR’s shares trade over $0.25 for 25 consecutive trading days.
• Titan Medical Inc. (TSXV: TMD), a developer of robotic surgery systems, launched a private placement of units (one common share plus 1/2 of a $0.48 warrant), engaging Union Securities Ltd. as lead agent aiming for proceeds of $3 – $5 million.
• GeneNews Limited (TSX: GEN) is planning a private placement (Canada only) of up to 4,444,444 common shares at $0.45 per share for total gross proceeds of up to $2,000,000.  Of that, GeneNews expects that “a specific labour sponsored investment fund corporation” will take half, making the fund (and its affiliates) an insider, owning over 13% of the company.

MDS Analytical Technologies Sale Faces More Analysis

MDS Inc.‘s (TSX:MDS) (NYSE:MDZ) sale of its Analytical Technologies business to Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR) has hit a bit of a road bump.  Part of that business is a joint venture between MDS and PerkinElmer, which required PerkinElmer’s consent to assign.  PerkinElmer has not granted that consent and, in fact, has now filed a Notice of Application seeking

“a range of alternative possible remedies: court direction with respect to the development of protocols to enforce key provisions of the joint-venture agreement between MDS and PerkinElmer; an injunction preventing enforcement of provisions of the MDS Analytical Technologies/Danaher sale agreement, which provide for MDS’s retention of the joint venture; or an interim and permanent injunction preventing the completion of the sale of MDS Analytical Technologies business to Danaher.”

MDS says it “believes it has a strong position and, if necessary, intends to defend this claim.”

More M&A – Shareholders, Start Your Proxies…

• As we noted in the Twitter stream at the time, DiaMedica Inc. (TSX: DMA), discoverer and developer of a novel approach to treating diabetes, entered into a non-binding LOI to acquire all the shares of the private company Sanomune Inc., developer of treatments for neurological, autoimmune and other indications, in exchange for approximately 12.8 million shares of DiaMedica, representing a 40% interest in DiaMedica post-acquisition. The principal shareholder of Sanomune, CentreStone Ventures Limited Partnership, is a control person of both DiaMedica and Sanomune, so the transaction will be a related party transaction requiring, among other things, DiaMedica minority shareholder approval.
• YM BioSciences Inc.‘s (NYSE Alternext US:YMI, TSX:YM, AIM:YMBA) acquisition of Cytopia (noted on Twitter in October) moved ahead this week with the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia okay-ing the deal.  This allows Cytopia to proceed with its shareholder vote, which will be held January 12, 2010.  YM also announced initial results of a collaboration with NRC Biotechnology Research Institute (NRC-BRI) in which YM’s antibody platform has produced an anti-Her2 candidate that is in the final stages of optimization.

Licensing

Privately-held Alethia Biotherapeutics Inc. is sewing up rights to reagents to detect Clusterin, a tumor biomarker, this time picking up rights to a Clusterin-binding peptide from the NRC Biotechnology Research Institute (NRC-BRI, everywhere this week!) to match its earlier in-license of anti-Clusterin antibodies.

Patheon Denoument

Patheon, in the lead-up to its FY2009 results this Friday, is engaged in some post-take-over-battle clean-up.  Last week, it settled the JLL Partners litigation (paying $1.5 million), and this week it announced its plans for its facilities in Puerto Rico and announced that Viso had withdrawn his request for a special meeting.

Thanks again to Jacob Cawker for help with this week’s Deal Review!