Cytopia acquires US collaborator

Cytopia (ASX: CYT) has acquired the assets of its US collaborator Myomatrix in a deal worth about US$625,000.

The acquisition includes Myomatrix's key asset - a worldwide exclusive licence from the State University of New York covering the application of JAK2 kinase inhibitors as treatments for cardiovascular diseases. The two companies have been working together for around 12 months to develop inhibitors for cardiovascular targets including heart failure and pulmonary hypertension.

"There's a good synergy between the technology that these guys had, and what we had," said Cytopia CEO Kevin Healey.

"It's an area of clinical application we had not really focused on before."

As a result of the acquisition, Cytopia Research, a subsidiary of pooled development fund Cytopia Ltd, has set up a US subsidiary Cytopia Inc to continue the cardiovascular R&D. Myomatrix founder and president Dr Larry Zisman will lead Cytopia's cardiovascular program, while co-founder Dr Shreefal Mehta will oversee operations and assist with US business development activities.

Healey said an additional synergy arising from the collaboration and subsequent acquisition has been the initiation of pre-clinical collaborations with researchers at the Baker Heart Research Institute, where Cytopia's Australian laboratories are based.

Cytopia also plans to issue 1,075,395 shares to a small group of investors - the existing shareholders of Myomatrix - this week, in effect raising funds for the acquisition.

"We didn't anticipate this acquisition when we did our last capital raising," Healey said. The company raised $13 million through a non-renounceable rights issue late last year with the funds earmarked to support clinical trials of its anticancer drug and the Myomatrix collaboration.

At time of writing shares in Cytopia were up 2 cents to $0.65.