New shareholder for Bionomics

Adelaide company Bionomics (ASX:BNO) has seen a major change in its shareholding in the past few weeks, with Queensland Investment Corporation ceasing to be a substantial shareholder and Laurence Freedman's Link Traders filling the gap.

Jill Mashado, chief financial officer and company secretary of Bionomics said that QIC hadn't given the company any reason for selling its shares.

"I don't think it's anything personal to Bionomics," she said.

However, she also said that it appears that QIC is reevaluating its portfolio and has been reducing the number of shares it holds in biotech companies.

"QIC still has a reasonable amount of shares in Bionomics," she said. "And we are pleased to see Link Traders as a substantial shareholder. They now hold over 10 per cent."

The company has also received a two-year extension and an additional $859,000 in funding on its Federal Government R&D Start grant for its central nervous system drug development program.

This boosts the original $2.87 million grant awarded to Bionomics in July 2003 to $3.73 million and extends the time frame for the company's epilepsy and anxiety drug research to an end date of June 30, 2007.

Bionomics' program focuses on the development of drugs that act on the GABA-A receptor, which is vital to brain function.

Over the past two years, Bionomics has been building up its drug infrastructure and it currently has drugs in animal and in-vitro trials to identify the best candidates, said Francis Placanica, vice president of intellectual property and legal affairs at Bionomics.

"This grant gives us the opportunity to take those drug candidates and get them commercialised," he said.