Bionomics buying France's Prestwick Chemical

Bionomics (ASX:BNO) is acquiring France-based medicinal chemistry services provider Prestwick Chemical for €270,000 ($347,000).

Prestwick specialises in R&D services for early drug discovery, including hit identification and validation, hit to lead and lead optimisation. The company earned revenues of €4.3 million ($6.2 million) in 2013.

The company is co-located with Bionomics’ wholly owned Neurofit contract research organisation, and Bionomics has been a Prestwick customer since 2009. In this role, Prestwick has contributed to Bionomics’ pain and BNC375 programs.

Prestwick has blue chip customers including GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, Sanofi Aventis, Abbot and EMD (Merck Serono), as well as multiple smaller pharmaceutical and biotechnology company clients.

“The acquisition of Prestwick is an important addition to Bionomics’ global operations. Bionomics is especially pleased to have acquired the Prestwick drug candidate library. This is a prized asset and we are well placed to understand and benefit from its true value,” Bionomics CEO Dr Deborah Rathjen said.

She said the acquisition has the potential to be as lucrative as Bionomics’ purchase of Neurofit in 2005.

Neurofit has played a key role in the identification of anxiety and depression treatment candidate BNC210 and the evaluation of compounds in the BNC375 program - the latter of which is the subject of a licensing deal worth up to US$506 million ($570 million).

Bionomics (ASX:BNO) shares were trading 0.93% higher at $0.545 as of around 1 pm on Tuesday.