RE: M&A12 Jun 2023 09:51
The AS article that jive_turkey refers to was in fact a letter published in the Times on 30th January.....printed below. I'm surprised AS has not followed up on his possible threat to list on NASDAQ as AIM is now quite useless for his company.
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"Sir, Emma Duncan’s column about problems facing UK life sciences companies (Jan 27) is right that lack of investment drives pioneering British businesses to turn to the United States for scale-up funding. Despite our world-leading expertise, UK biotech unicorns are rare. In the past four years 11 UK biotechs have chosen to make their initial public offering in the US. Why are we so bad at holding on to long-term value generated by our innovative science? There are many factors but in my view it’s primarily due to overburdensome regulation, compounded by a paucity of expert analysts to guide risk-averse UK investment managers.
The Retail Distribution Review (RDR) and the EU generated Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 11 (MiFID 11) both had dire unintended consequences for high-growth, high-risk companies. These oppressive pieces of regulation put smaller investment banks off high-risk stocks, restricting the UK public markets opportunity for many life-sciences companies, giving them little choice but to seek funding abroad.
Jeremy Hunt wants science innovators to come to Britain “to make their visions happen”.
Admirable aspiration, but we need a smarter strategy to scale our own life sector if we’re to reap the potentially substantial rewards. A good start would be relaxing the constraints of RDR and MiFID 11).
Dr Alastair Smith
CEO, Avacta Group"
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