Cyprotex sold for £41.7 million

Macclesfield biotech company Cyprotex is to delist from the AIM market and be acquired by a German drug discovery firm for £41.7m.

Evotec will acquire the company’s entire share capital at 160p a share. The share price is a premium of 74.9% to the closing price of Cyprotex shares of 91.5p on March 31, the last day of the offer period.

The preclinical contract research company, with offices on Beech Lane employing just over 100 staff, had announced that it was undertaking a strategic review in April.

Dr Anthony D Baxter, chief executive of Cyprotex said: “Cyprotex has grown an impressive number of high quality customers in recent years serving a wide industry base.

“There is little overlap in the specific services between the two businesses but the opportunity to provide larger, integrated and strategic outsourced pre-clinical research services to a wider customer base is clear and compelling.”

Evotec said the acquisition will allow it to grow in the area of large scale, strategic research services.

Dr Werner Lanthaler, chief executive of Evotec said: “Our focus on creating the leading innovative and capital efficient drug discovery platform will be perfectly extended by Cyprotex.

“Given our strong performance over the last years, a very good outlook of our business into the coming years, and the commercial profile of Cyprotex we also feel very comfortable in using the cash on our strong balance sheet for this accretive acquisition.

“We are very much looking forward to welcoming the employees of Cyprotex within the Evotec group after closing of the transaction.”