GW Pharmaceuticals, a British company developing the world's first cannabis-based medicine for multiple sclerosis patients, said today it planned to list on the London stock market.
The debut on the junior Alternative Investment Market, which is planned for late June, will be accompanied by a Stg£16 million pound share placing with institutions and is expected to value the group at stg£140-170m.
GW is the latest in a handful of European biotechnology companies to test the initial public offering (IPO) market again after a funding drought in recent months.
The Salisbury-based firm is developing prescription drugs to harness the medicinal benefits of cannabis and has created a range of products which will be delivered using an under-the-tongue spray, a fast-dissolving tablet or an inhaler.
It recently extended the development programme for its leading MS drug into Phase III trials, the last hurdle before approval is granted.
Managing director Mr Justin Gover said the product could reach the market in Europe and Canada in 2003, although winning a green light in the big United States marketplace would probably take two years longer. GW hopes to make a profit in 2004.
Sufferers from MS, which attacks the central nervous system, have been calling for a pain-relieving cannabis medicine for years and many have broken the law by buying the drug from street dealers.
GW, which also has programmes for cancer pain and rheumatoid arthritis, believes its medicine offers the pain relief benefits of cannabis without users getting high .
The three-year-old firm will use existing reserves of 5.5 million pounds and proceeds from its IPO to scale up production of cannabis five to 10 fold. It currently grows around 15 tonnes a year in 30,000 square feet of glasshouses.
Flotation will enable GW to take the next step in developing what began as a patient-driven proposition into a full service pharmaceutical company capable of establishing a position in several large markets, said Executive chairman Mr Geoffrey Guy.
Mr Guy previously co-founded the firm which became Phytopharm Plc, another plant-based drug company developing products for bowel cancer and obesity.
GW will license out its MS medicine - which adviser Collins Stewart estimates could sell as much as stg£500m pounds a year - to large a drug firm, in exchange for royalties. However, Gover said no negotiations were currently under way.