Recent press releases

19 April 2006

Lectus Therapeutics Acquires NeuroServe

Bristol, UK 19 April 2006, Lectus Therapeutics Ltd (“Lectus”), a drug discovery and development company focusing on next-generation ion channel modulators, today announced that it has acquired the assets of NeuroServe Ltd, an electrophysiology company which tests compounds on ion channels for pharmaceutical and biotech clients. The assets purchased by Lectus include intellectual property, equipment and expertise. Lectus has also taken over the lease on the premises located at Babraham in Cambridgeshire, placing the company at the heart of the UK’s leading biotechnology cluster. This acquisition forms an important part of Lectus’s strategy.

Lectus had been outsourcing its electrophysiological requirements to NeuroServe since 2003. Having raised £8.2m in a Series A round earlier this year Lectus is now expanding its sphere of operations. By acquiring the assets of NeuroServe, Lectus has brought electrophysiology in house and gained access to technology and expertise which it will use to advance its internal programmes.

Lectus’s mission is to discover and develop first- and best- in class next-generation ion channel drugs to treat pain, urinary incontinence and angina. The equipment and methodology now available to Lectus will be used to evaluate compounds generated through exploitation of its proprietary proteomics research engine, LEPTICS®.

Dr Roland Kozlowski, CEO of Lectus, commented: “We are very pleased with this asset purchase. The skill set acquired enables us to significantly build complementary expertise within the organisation. Significantly by bringing electrophysiological compound evaluation into Lectus it also removes a bottleneck within our drug discovery process.”

Dr Phillip Boden, Managing Director of NeuroServe (who becomes Director of Biology at Lectus) commented “NeuroServe and Lectus have worked closely together for two years. This deal is a natural progression for NeuroServe and its staff who are keen to shift from service provision and apply their unique skills exclusively to Lectus’s drug discovery programmes. In particular NeuroServe’s specialist multi-electrode array will provide a valuable tool for evaluating tissue selectivity of Lectus’s next-generation ion channel therapeutics”

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Lectus Therapeutics Ltd. 2003–2008