The biotech has among its shareholders Berlusconi, Doris and Del Vecchio. The debut is expected for March 5th
Together with Ennio Doris and Leonardo Del Vecchio, Silvio Berlusconi is one of the par excellence shareholders of Molmed, the biotech company born inside the San Raffaele technological park ready to land on the Stock Exchange. The bond of friendship between the former premier and Don Verzé, the founder of the Milanese hospital, is strong and ancient. And if Berlusconi will live to be 120, as he promised his constituents during the last episode of Porta a Porta, the credit will go to Don Verzé. With which, the premier said, he is studying an elixir of life. Molmed, on the other hand, does research in the oncological field. It develops cells for therapies that fight blood, colon and lung cancer. The first seed of the company dates back to 1996 when the San Raffaele Science Park and Boehringer Mannheim (later Roche) set up a joint venture. In 2004, Fininvest, H-Equity Dicar (which refers to Doris) and Delfin (Del Vecchio's finance company) entered the capital, taking over respectively 21.85 Berlusconi and 10.9% the other two. With the hope that Claudio Bordignon, president, managing director and driving force behind Molmed, would be able to get to where every biotech must get: to pass phase III of a product, obtain authorization to trade from the control authorities and start selling the drug. We are in 2008, and the last step is missing. The development of phase three. This is why Molmed and its shareholders have chosen to go on the market. To find the resources necessary to complete the last phase of research. The objective – as general manager Marina Del Bue confirmed yesterday – is to commercialize the first products in 2012. In pole position is TK, a cell therapy which allows the transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells also from the bone marrow coming from partially compatible donors. It is an orphan drug, drugs that treat rare diseases. If it passes phase III, TK will be the only product in the world for that specific cancer. So potentially the TK will be able to produce very high turnover and profit margins. The shareholders, including the biotech fund Airain - a company incorporated under Portuguese law controlled by another fund which is attributable to the director of Molmed Francesco Bongiovanni - chose the form of the capital increase. So at the end of the placement, if all the shares including the greenshoe are subscribed, all the shareholders will be diluted proportionally. Airain and Science Park will drop to 20.3%, Fininvest will stand at 15.78%, H-Equiy and Delfin at 7.89%, while the market will have a free float of 27.7%. The price range for the subscription of the shares, which will be offered at 13.4% to private individuals and the rest to institutional investors, has been set between 2.15 and 2.75 euro per share. The debut in Piazza Affari on the MTA segment is set for 5 March. If the offer closes on high, Molmed will be able to raise up to 71.8 million euro. A sum that would guarantee him to arrive without the need for new capital injections until 2012. The year in which, according to plans, he expects to become self-sufficient thanks to the TK. Free Market of 02/20/2008, article by MICHELA RAVALICO p. 12
