Destiny plots Aim float to fund MRSA drug

DRUG company Destiny Pharma is to float on London’s junior Aim market to raise upwards of £10m for a new treatment for antibiotic-resistant superbugs such as MRSA.

The firm, whose chairman is City veteran Sir Nigel Rudd, the former chairman of Heathrow, will become only the second biotech company to float in London this year.

The firm’s main project is XF-73, a drug that targets Staphylococcus aureus infections most commonly found in hospitals. It is currently in testing.

One of the most serious types of the Staphylococcus aureus infection is the superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which can have life-threatening consequences, such as blood poisoning. Destiny has market exclusivity on the XF-73 drug for up to 20 years and has already completed five successful clinical trials. The company is yet to finalise exactly how much it wants to raise through the float, but told The Daily Telegraph it would be “more than £10m”.

Neil Clark, chief executive of Destiny, said: “The rise of anti-microbial resistance is recognised globally as a major issue that urgently needs addressing and our XF drug platform offers a novel way of tackling this.”

He added that funds the company intended to raise in conjunction with the admission of its shares to trading on Aim should allow it to progress the drug to the next stage of testing.

It will initially target the US market but has ambitions to take the drug to Europe and Asia, it said, and has already secured a grant from the US government for trials. Dr Bill Love, Destiny’s chief scientific officer, said development of this type of drug was limited, and it had “mostly been small innovative companies like Destiny working in this space”.

The XF drugs work by binding to bacteria within the body, meaning they can kill it within 15 minutes, he said.