Bioprogress Future2

Apols if this was posted yesterday. From the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press:



Firm set to leave Fenland town
22 December 2005

STEVE COX

Pill coatings firm BioProgress is moving out of March and taking over a French pharmaceutical company, it announced yesterday.

The company, which employs 15 people in the Fenland town, is shifting its headquarters to the Cambridge Science Park to cut costs and be near similar businesses.

“The move will decrease rental lease costs by over 70pc and locate the group in an area renowned for innovation in related industries,” the company said.

A package of measures announced yesterday, which also include a new joint venture and a fund raising through the issue of extra shares, would change BioProgress from a loss-making to a profit-making company, financial director Dan Farrow told the EDP.

The number of staff at March has been cut from 30 to 15 in recent months as part of a restructuring but Mr Farrow said all those remaining would be invited to move to Cambridge.

He expected that the business would grow quickly after it moved out of unsuitable current premises at the end of February. Being in Cambridge would help the company recruit the talent it needed for the future, he added.

BioProgress, which makes pill coatings and dissolving films which can be used for breath-freshening strips or for taking drugs by mouth, said yesterday that it had agreed to buy French company Dexo S.A. for EUROS 12.5m (£8.5m) of which EUROS 8m will be in cash and EUROS 4.5m will be in shares.

Among the attractions of the deal for BioProgress is that it will be able to apply its technology to drugs made by Dexo, a privately owned and profitable company which specialises in treatments for gastrointestinal illnesses, Wilson's Disease and ear, nose and throat ailments.

BioProgress also said it was entering into a new joint venture with a private generic drug supplier, Crescent Pharma, part of the General Mediterranean Group, based in Basingstoke. Crescent supplies a wide range of generic and over-the-counter medicines in the UK.

BioProgress will own 75.1pc of the joint venture which will be called Dexo BioPharm.

The company also said yesterday that it is placing 12.2 million shares at 47p, equivalent to almost 10pc of the current issued share capital. Money raised will help fund the purchase of Dexo S.A. and provide additional working capital.