PharmaTelevision - Martin Buckland talks about the great potential created by the recent merger between SuperGen Inc. and Astex Therapeutics

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Video title: Martin Buckland talks about the great potential created by the recent merger between SuperGen Inc. and Astex Therapeutics

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In this episode of PharmaTelevision News Review, Fintan Walton talks to Martin Buckland, CBO of Astex Therapeutics

Full video transcripts are available with PharmaTelevision Premium Content. Click here to buy a subscription or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Origin and corporate partners

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaTelevision News Review here at BioTrinity 2011. On this show I have Martin Buckland, who is Chief Business Officer at a company called Astex Therapeutics based in Cambridge in the UK, welcome to the show.

Martin Buckland:

Thank you very much Fintan, it's good to see you again.

Fintan Walton:

Astex Therapeutics, is a Cambridge based biotechnology company a private company currently, tell me little bit about the origins of Astex itself and particularly who the original backers were and also what is different about Astex versus all the other biotech company?

Martin Buckland:

Absolutely, very happy to do that. So the company was formed originally in 1999 and the that the three co-founders were two professors from the University of Cambridge and Harren Jhoti who at the time was Head of Structural Biology at GlaxoWellcome. So it was founded by Harren, by Professor Sir Tom Blundell from the University and also by Professor Chris Abell from the Chemistry Department of the University. So the company was incorporated in 1999 we started operations in 2000 the original backers for the company were two key venture capital groups Abingworth Management Limited and Oxford Bioscience Partners in Boston, in the US. We did an initial fund raising in 2001 and that brought in some additional investors into our Series A round including Gimv, and Alta Partners, and Advent International and then in 2003 we did a Series B round via the acquisition of a German company called Metagen and that brought in amongst others Apax Partners as a venture capital investor and it also brought in Schering AG as a first of our corporate partners and corporate investors. And then in 2007 on the back of a deal that we did with Novartis we started a Series C round which was lead by Novartis and now we have Novartis, we have Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, we also have GSK shareholders all of those have come in on the back of deals that we've done with them over the last few years.

Fintan Walton:

And all these people who've been putting money into Astex for what reason?

Full video transcripts are available with PharmaTelevision Premium Content. Click here to buy a subscription or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Fintan Walton

Dr Fintan Walton is the Founder and CEO of PharmaVentures . After completing his doctoral research on the genetics of cell proliferation at the University of Michigan(US)and Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Dr Walton gained broad commercial experience in biotechnology in management positions at Bass and Celltech plc (1982-1992).

Martin Buckland

Chief Business Officer

Martin Buckland joined Astex as Chief Business Officer in September 2004 and was appointed to the Board in July 2008. He has more than 20 years of commercial and business development experience in the pharmaceutical industry and joined Astex from Elan Pharmaceuticals where he previously held the position of VP Global Business Development. His prior experience includes a variety of business development and commercial management roles with Quintiles, Xenova and Celltech. He has a BA in Chemistry and a DPhil from the University of Oxford, and an MBA from the Open Business School.

PharmaVentures

PharmaVentures is a corporate finance and transactions advisory firm that has served hundreds of clients worldwide in relation to their strategic deal making in the pharmaceutical, life science and healthcare sectors. Our key offerings include: Transactions / deal negotiations; Product / technology valuations; Deal term advice; Due diligence & expert reports; Strategy formulation; Alliance management; and Expert opinion for litigation/arbitration cases. PharmaVentures provides the global expertise to ensure our clients generate the highest possible return on investment from all their deal making activities. We have experience of all therapeutic areas and can offer advice on both product and technology commercialisation.

Astex Therapeutics

Astex Therapeutics is a UK based biotechnology company that discovers and develops novel small molecule therapeutics. Using its pioneering fragment-based drug discovery platform, Pyramid, Astex has built a pipeline of molecularly-targeted oncology drugs, of which three are currently being tested in clinical trials with others in discovery and pre-clinical development. In addition to its proprietary research programs, Astex's productivity in lead discovery has been endorsed through numerous partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis. On April 6th 2011, Astex announced that it had entered into a definitive merger agreement with SuperGen Inc a NASDAQ listed company, to form a financially strong, oncology focused company, to be called Astex Therapeutics Inc.