US Drugs Firm Verseon Targets £230m AIM Float

A California-based pharmaceuticals group is hoping to attract the attention of the UK's best-known fund manager by targeting a £230m stock market listing in London.

Sky News understands that Verseon, which uses proprietary technology to assist in the drug discovery process, has appointed Cenkos, the investment bank, to prepare it for a listing on the juior AIM market.

Cenkos has begun a roadshow of prospective investors in recent days, according to insiders, and is talking to institutions including Woodford Investment Management, which was founded last year by Neil Woodford, the prominent investor.

Mr Woodford has been a major backer of drugs companies and was a vocal presence during last year's aborted £60bn takeover battle between Britain's AstraZeneca and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE - news) of the US.

Verseon, which is understood to be yet to break even since being set up in 2002, is expected to seek to raise roughly $75m (£50m) from its flotation, which is expected to take place later this year.

A listing would seek to exploit buoyant stock markets which are being aided by a flood of central bank liquidity provided by quantitative easing programmes in Europe and the US.

If successful, a float would crystallise a paper fortune for Adityo Prakash and Eniko Fodor, the two Verseon founders whose previous ventures were in the technology sector.

The company's pipeline is focused on three prospective treatment areas: blood coagulation; diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular oedema, which affect the eye; and oncology.

"The platform can consistently design novel potential drugs that are unlikely to be found using conventional methods," said a source familar with Verseon's business model.

Their efforts to list the company comes amid a frenzy of investor interest in the biotech sector, with a string of mega-bids during the last 12 months helping to drive dealmaking activity to its highest level since before the 2008 financial crisis.

In recent weeks, the Israeli group Teva has made a $40bn bid for Mylan (Berlin: 6MY.BE - news) , a US rival which had itself made a $28.9bn offer for Perrigo, an Irish-based company.

A Verseon spokesman declined to comment on Thursday.