LONDON (Alliance News) - TyraTech Inc Monday said it will get about USD500,000 after it reduced its stake in a joint venture it has with American Vanguard Corp, and will invest the money in developing its Vamousse headlice control products and expanding them overseas.
The company said it it will get USD500,000 in cash in repayment of loans and consideration after it agreed to amend the terms of the Envance Technologies LLC joint venture, which was set up in 2012 to further develop and commercialise TyraTech's technology in agriculture, home, and lawn and garden. However, since them TyraTech has focused on its Vamousse range.
It has agreed to convert contributions the parties have made into the venture so far into interests, giving American Vanguard 83.77% of the venture and TyraTech 16.23%, compared with the previous 60:40 split. TyraTech then also agreed to sell American Vanguard a further 3% stake in the business, taking American Vanguard's ownership to 86.67% and TyraTech's down to 13.33%.
TyraTech said it considers the move to be positive because it will allow it focus on its personal care and animal health products.
"Over the past twelve months, having validated our entry into the personal care market with the successful launch of our Vamousse branded products in both the USA and the UK, our investment and growth pathway will be through geographic expansion of our current products, commercialisation of products in development, and continued development of our pipeline across both the personal care and animal health markets," TryaTech Chief Executive Bruno Jactel said in a statement.
"With our sharpened strategic focus in these two markets, I am very pleased that together with TyraTech's strategic investor, AMVAC, we were able to achieve our goal of strengthening Envance as the organisation best suited to develop and commercialise TyraTech's technology for the agriculture, household, and lawn and garden markets," he added.
The news comes as TyraTech gets its Vamousse products into more pharmacy chains and distributors in the US and UK. It now has the head lice treatment listed with US pharmacy chains Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Pharmacy, as well as in Walmart stores, and with the three largest distributors of pharmaceutical products in the US: McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, giving it access to the roughly 20,000 independent pharmacies in the US. In the UK, it has recently won deals to sell its Vamousse head lice treatment and protection products in Lloyds Pharmacies and the treatment product with the Day Lewis Pharmacy chain, as well as in the UK's largest retailer Tesco PLC.
TyraTech shares were down 6.3% at 4.80 pence in London Monday morning.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
