Dundee Corporation maintains 5% stake in company developing a
revolutionary treatment for Alzheimer's Disease
TORONTO and SINGAPORE, March 4,
2013 /CNW/ - TauRx Pharmaceuticals Ltd. ("TauRx") announced
today the receipt of an equity investment of USD10.5m from Dundee Corporation of Toronto ("Dundee"). The investment will be
used by TauRx primarily to support the on-going program of three
Phase 3 clinical trials of LMTX™, its novel compound currently in
development as a disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer's
Disease ("AD") and behavioural-variant Fronto-Temporal Dementia
("bvFTD").
Dundee made its initial
investment of USD20m in TauRx in
September 2011. Ned Goodman, President and Chief Executive
Officer of Dundee, said: "TauRx
has made good use of our initial investment, gaining regulatory
clearance to initiate its Phase 3 study program for LMTX™ and
establishing a network of experienced service providers to support
the studies. With the first patients now being enrolled into each
of the three studies, and with the recent substantial strategic
investment from the Genting Berhad group, this seems a highly
opportune time to exercise the option we were granted by TauRx at
the time of the initial investment and maintain Dundee's 5% interest in this commercially and
scientifically promising company."
Professor Claude Wischik,
Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of TauRx, said: "It is
particularly gratifying to receive this follow-on investment from
Dundee. It made its initial
investment at a time of critical importance to the development of
both TauRx and our Tau aggregation inhibitor, LMTX™, and we see
this additional investment of USD10.5m as a welcome vote of confidence in the
commercial potential of our technology from a highly experienced
investor. We continue to believe strongly that Tau aggregation
inhibition is the most promising approach to the long-term
treatment of AD and other Tau-opathies such as bvFTD. With
expanding patient populations throughout the world due to an aging
population, and with products based on beta-amyloid clearance still
producing disappointing results in clinical studies, it is now
critically important for healthcare systems, patients, their
families and their careers to bring an effective treatment for
these devastating diseases to market."
About TauRx Therapeutics:
TauRx Therapeutics Ltd was established in Singapore in 2002 with the aim of developing
new treatments and diagnostics for a range of neurodegenerative
diseases based on an entirely new approach which targets aggregates
of abnormal fibres of Tau protein that form inside nerve cells in
the brain. The TauRx team have since discovered that LMTX™ could
also have beneficial effects in several other neurodegenerative
diseases associated with Tau pathology, as well as other protein
aggregation disorders including Parkinson's, Huntington's and
Frontotemporol Dementia [FTD-Pick's Disease]. The TauRx corporate
headquarters are in Singapore and
its primary research facilities are in Aberdeen, Scotland.
About Dundee Corporation:
Dundee Corporation is a Canadian independent publicly traded
asset management company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange
("TSX") under the symbol "DC.A". Asset management activities are
focused in the areas of the corporation's core competencies and
include resources, real estate and infrastructure, and more
recently, the agriculture sector. These activities are carried out
by Dundee's wholly owned
subsidiary, Goodman Investment Counsel Inc. Dundee's capital markets and personal
investment advisory services are carried out through the "Dundee
Capital Markets" and "Dundee Goodman Private Wealth" divisions of
its wholly owned subsidiary, Dundee Securities Ltd. Dundee also owns and manages direct
investments in its core focus areas and other select investments,
through ownership, directly and indirectly, of both publicly listed
and private companies.
SOURCE TauRx Pharmaceuticals Ltd.