Medica raises $4.3m for biotech investees

Pooled development fund Medica Holdings has completed a fund-raising trifecta for its stable of biotech investee companies.

Medica today announced the successful completion of a AUD$4.3 million share placement with Australian institutions and investors arranged by ABN AMRO Morgan.

The bulk of the fresh capital is earmarked for anti-cancer drug developer Cytopia, one of the three biotech companies in which Medica Holdings has substantial interests. It will be used primarily to fund pre-clinical testing of Cytopia's lead anti-cancer drug candidate.

In the past six months, Cytopia has demonstrated in vivo proof of the drug's efficiency in animal models of hormone refactory prostate cancer (HRPC) and leukaemia, according to Medica Holdings.

Of Medica's other two biotech investee companies, carbohydrate-based drug developer Alchemia recently tied off a $2.75 million capital raising, of which Medica Holdings contributed $1 million.

The last company, anti-pain drug developer Xenome, in June became the first company to win backing from the $100 million Queensland Biocapital Fund, which invested $6 million in it.

Medica Holdings now has about 21 per cent of Alchemia and 24 per cent of Xenome, both of whom are Queensland-based companies. The latest injection in Cytopia lifts Medica Holdings' stake in it to about 79 per cent.

Medica Holdings managing director Kevin Healey said the latest raising meant all of Medica's investee companies were funded and proceeding toward their commercial milestones.