Autolus investment the main drag in an otherwise solid quarter from Syncona – Syncona, which predominantly invests in life sciences companies, has released a quarterly update this morning (covering the period to 30 June 2019). We have covered many of the events referenced by the company, in earlier news stories, which we link to in this article, where appropriate.
Autolus share price decline the main negative
- Sale of Blue Earth Diagnostics to Bracco Imaging announced (click here to read more on this story), valuing Syncona’s holding at £336.9m, a £69.4m uplift to carrying value and a 10.0x return on original investment
- Completion of the acquisition of Nightstar by Biogen (click here to read more on this story) with £255.8m of proceeds received in the period, representing a 4.5x return on original investment;
- Syncona investment of $24.0 million in a $109.0m follow on financing in Autolus and initial positive data from the AUTO1 adult ALL Phase 1/2 trial;
- Merger of Gyroscope and Orbit (click here to read more on this story) to create world’s first end-to-end retinal gene therapy company;
- Foundation of Quell Therapeutics in an emerging area of cell therapy and appointment of Iain McGill as CEO;
- Strategic capital pool of £580.2m; capital deployment of £64.1m over the three months in line with Syncona’s strategy to fund its companies over the long-term;
- Net assets of £1,352.1m, 201.4p per share, a total return of -7% over the three months with the £69.4m uplift from the sale of Blue Earth outweighed by the 48.8 per cent decline in Autolus’ share price in the period, despite the company’s strong fundamentals.
SYNC: Autolus investment the main drag in an otherwise solid quarter from Syncona
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