Corporate News & RNS

Fusion Antibodies plc (AIM: FAB), specialists in pre-clinical antibody discovery, engineering and supply for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications, has been notified of the exercise of options over ordinary shares of 4p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") by a director and certain employees of the Company.

Richard Buick, Chief Technical Officer, has exercised 125,000 options at an exercise price of 4p per option. Following this exercise, Mr Buick will hold 611,250 Ordinary Shares, equivalent to 2.37% of the Company's issued share capital as enlarged by today's option exercises.

A further 43,334 options have been exercised by certain employees of the Company at an exercise price of 54.5p.

The options with an exercise price of 4p were issued under the Company's historic option scheme and those with a 54.5p exercise price were issued pursuant to the Company's EMI Employee Share Option Scheme.

Application for admission to trading and total voting rights

The 168,334 new Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu in all respects with the Company's existing ordinary shares.  Application has been made for the new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM ("Admission"), which is expected to become effective on 27 May 2021.

On Admission, the issued share capital of the Company will comprise 25,818,278 ordinary shares of 4 pence each with one voting right per share ("Ordinary Shares"). The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury. Therefore, from Admission, the total number of Ordinary Shares and voting rights in the Company will be 25,818,278. From Admission, the above figure may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

The following notification, made in accordance with the requirements of the UK Market Abuse Regulation, gives further details. 

 

1	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Richard Buick
2	Reason for the notification
a)	Position/status	Chief Technical Officer
b)	Initial notification /Amendment	Initial notification
3	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Fusion Antibodies plc
b)	LEI	213800KBAYRC9VOQ9V39
4	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument  Identification code	Options over ordinary shares of 4p each in Fusion Antibodies plc Identification code (ISIN) for Fusion Antibodies plc ordinary shares: GB00BDQZGK16
b)	Nature of the transaction	Exercise of options
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	Price(s) Volume(s) 4p exercise price 125,000
d)	Aggregated information - Aggregated volume - Price	N/A
e)	Date of the transaction	20 May 2021
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

 

Enquiries: 

Fusion Antibodies plc		www.fusionantibodies.com
Richard Jones, Chief Executive Officer James Fair, Chief Financial Officer		Via Walbrook PR
Allenby Capital Limited		Tel: +44 (0)20 3328 5656
James Reeve (Corporate Finance) Tony Quirke (Sales and Corporate Broking)
Walbrook PR	Tel: +44 (0)20 7933 8780 or fusion@walbrookpr.com
Anna Dunphy		Mob: +44 (0)7876 741 001
Paul McManus		Mob: +44 (0)7980 541 893

 

About Fusion Antibodies plc

Fusion is a Belfast based contract research organisation ("CRO") providing a range of antibody engineering services for the development of antibodies for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications.

The Company's ordinary shares were admitted to trading on AIM on 18 December 2017. Fusion provides a broad range of services in antibody generation, development, production, characterisation and optimisation. These services include antigen expression, antibody production, purification and sequencing, antibody humanisation using Fusion's proprietary CDRx ^TM  platform and the production of antibody generating stable cell lines to provide material for use in clinical trials. Since 2012, the Company has successfully sequenced and expressed over 250 antibodies and successfully completed over 200 humanisation projects and has an international, blue-chip client base, which has included eight of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies by revenue.

The Company was established in 2001 as a spin out from Queen's University Belfast. The Company's mission is to enable pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies to develop innovative products in a timely and cost-effective manner for the benefit of the global healthcare industry. Fusion Antibodies provides a broad range of services in antibody generation, development, production, characterisation and optimisation.

Fusion Antibodies growth strategy is based on combining the latest technological advances with cutting edge science to deliver new platforms that will enable Pharma and Biotech companies get to the clinic faster, with the optimal drug candidate and ultimately speed up the drug development process. 

The global monoclonal antibody therapeutics market was valued at $135.4 billion in 2018 and is forecast to surpass $212.6 billion in 2022, an increase at a CAGR of 12.0 per cent. for the period 2018 to 2022. In 2017, seven of the world's ten top selling drugs were antibody-based therapeutics with the combined annual sales of these drugs exceeding $63.2 billion.