Selvita to spin out cancer business

"There are clear opportunities for value creation from two entities with freedom to operate independently, built from the separate business units of Selvita today," said Pawel Przewiezlikowski, Chief Executive Officer of Selvita. Few days before, the FDA granted a IND for Selvita’s small molecule CDK8 blocker SEL120, which the company want to develop in blood cancer indications. Furthermore, Selvita is conducting a Phase I/II trial of its partnered Menarini programme SEL24/MEN1703, a dual PIM/FLT3 kinase inhibitor in refractory AML. For 2018, Selvita reported a 67% increase in revenues ($16m) for its contract research division.

Following the split, Selvita’s contract research business plans to grow organically and through acquisitions. Besides pushing its clinical candidates, he new oncology therapeutics company will advance other early stage programmes from its targeted therapeutics, cancer metabolism/immunometabolism and immuno-oncology platforms and select one new candidate for clinic clincial development.

Przewiezlikowski is set to become CEO of the oncology company; the current Selvita Chief Operating Officer Boguslaw Sieczkowski will become CEO of the CRO.

The transaction is intended to result in maintaining the current shareholding structure of Selvita with both new companies. For each existing share in Selvita S.A., shareholders will receive one share in the Selvita oncology therapeutics company and one share in the Selvita research services company. The Selvita research services company will retain ownership of shares in precision medicine AI company Ardigen. The Selvita oncology therapeutics company will assume ownership of shares of spin-off company NodThera, which is focused on therapeutics based on inflammasome biology. 

The transaction is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to approvals by Selvita shareholders and the Polish Financial Supervisory Authority.