Melbourne Australia 25 October 2012: Agenix Limited (ASX: AGX) today announced it had entered an agreement with Tyrian Diagnostics Limited (ASX: TDX) to license its rapid point-of-care human diagnostic technology in a share exchange transaction.
Under the terms of the agreement, Agenix will license exclusive world-wide royalty free rights to the human health application for Tyrian’s proprietary DiagnostIQ® rapid point-of-care test platform.
In return, Agenix will provide Tyrian with Agenix shares to the value of $0.5million payable in installments to be completed by June 2014.
The DiagnostIQ® platform comprises a patented disposable test device which can be used for various applications either alone or together with the DiagnostIQ® Reader for various human, animal and agricultural applications to determine action to be taken at the point of care for human and veterinary tests or point of need for agricultural and environmental tests.
Agenix has licensed the rights to develop the DiagnostIQ® platform for human health applications and aims to develop the technology into a micro-array device so that it will process multiple human health diagnostic tests on the one system.
The device is currently licensed to Bayer CropScience AG for an agricultural application.
In an addition to the licence, to be finalised in the near future, Agenix will also acquire a patent for Tyrian’s antibody-based test for active tuberculosis. This patent covers a novel biomarker, discovered by Tyrian, which has the potential to distinguish patients with active TB infection from those that have been infected in the past, or have been vaccinated.
Agenix Limited Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Weston said, “This acquisition advances our product pipeline and adds to our human health diagnostics business. We now have a platform for human health array and micro-array technology developers globally, as well as a medical device product for our expanding China business.”
Tyrian Limited Chairman, Roger Amos said the licence agreement with Agenix was part of the company’s continued efforts by Tyrian to monetise its diagnostic testing assets following the recent company restructuring. It follows a 2011 licence to SpeeDx Pty Ltd for active TB testing approaches outside of the antibody field.
Mr Weston said Agenix did not anticipate the closing of the deal would impact its immediate cash requirements. The shares to be issued to Tyrian currently represent less than 20% of the issued capital and will be fully paid ordinary shares ranking equally with existing listed shares. The share issue will be made within Agenix’s 15% annual placement capacity under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and will not require shareholder approval.
For more information please contact:
Nicholas Weston
Agenix Limited
Tel: 1300 132 551
Andrew Geddes
Tel: (02) 9555 4453
