A London MedTech which is looking to delist from the London Stock Exchange’s alternative AIM market says its decision has been vindicated after it secured backing from a major US healthcare fund.
Silence Therapeutics, which discovers, develops and delivers short interfering ribonucleic acid therapeutics for the treatment of diseases with significant unmet medical need, is focusing on its listing on the Nasdaq in New York.
Frazier Life Sciences Public Fund has purchased approximately $20 million of shares in Silence and is now a 3% shareholder in the company.
“A key objective of our decision to delist from AIM and focus our efforts on Nasdaq was to attract institutional healthcare funds like Frazier,” said CFO Craig Tooman.
“This is exactly what we envisioned, and we look forward to continuing to expand our global shareholder base.”
Founded in 1991, Frazier Healthcare Partners has over $7.1 billion total capital raised behind it and has invested in more than 200 companies.
Headquartered in California, it helps to commercialise innovative biopharmaceuticals to address important unmet medical needs. Since 2005, 61 Frazier Life Sciences portfolio companies have completed IPOs or M&As.
Albert Cha, managing partner of Frazier Life Sciences, said: “Frazier Life Sciences is excited for the prospects for Silence’s RNA interference platform technology and the potential for the Company’s growth, given its promising pipeline and the noteworthy success other companies have demonstrated with RNA interference programs.”
Mark Rothera, president and CEO of Silence, added: “Frazier has a track record of partnering with science-driven healthcare businesses, and we are very pleased to welcome them as an important new shareholder in Silence.
“This comes at an exciting time for the Company as we progress two important, wholly owned clinical stage programs and rapidly expand our pre-clinical pipeline leveraging our mRNAi GOLD platform.”