CRX.L Regulatory News (CRX)

23 January 2014

Cyprotex - Executive option scheme

Cyprotex PLC (AIM:CRX); a specialist ADME-tox Contract Research Organisation providing screening services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemical and cosmetic industries, today provides details of the adoption of an executive share option scheme.

Executive share option scheme

The Group currently has 224,340,569 Ordinary shares in issue with a further 2,920,655 fully vested share options held by employees allowing them to acquire Ordinary shares in the Company at prices ranging between 4.25 pence and 11.0 pence. The Board has adopted and approved the award of up to an additional 33,333,333 share options under the Cyprotex PLC (2014) Employee Incentive Scheme (the "2014 Scheme"). This represents a maximum dilution of shareholders and current option holders of 14.7%.

The Convertible Loan Notes, issued by the Company in September 2013, including Payment in Kind ('PIK') interest at a rate of 5% per annum, may be converted at each anniversary date until final maturity on 30 September 2018, five years post issue. The conversion of the underlying principal, excluding PIK interest, of the Convertible Loan Notes at the nominal conversion price of 6 pence would lead to an issue of a further 66,666,667 ordinary shares and the dilutive effect of the 2014 scheme would fall to 11.3% on this basis.

The vesting of these executive options is on grant, at 6 pence per share, and is exercisable only on change of control of the Company within a ten year period and is dependent upon the Company's share price performance, subject to a minimum share price of 12 pence.

Dr Anthony Baxter, CEO of Cyprotex, commented: 

"We are pleased that the Board has set forth an incentive scheme for senior managers which will encourage the continuation of the excellent scientific and fiscal performances that the business has seen over the past 5 years and assist in continuing to improve shareholder returns."

For further information:

Notes to Editors

About Cyprotex PLC

Cyprotex is based in Macclesfield, near Manchester in the UK, and Watertown, MA in the US and its shares are admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (AIM: "CRX"). The Company was established in 1999 and works with more than 800 partners ranging from small biotech's to large pharma companies. Cyprotex acquired Apredica and the assets of Cellumen, Inc. in August 2010 and the combined business provides support for a wide range of experimental and computational ADME-Tox and PK services, extending from early drug discovery through to IND submission. The Company's core capabilities include high quality in vitro ADME screening services, mechanistic toxicology and high content toxicology screening services, including our proprietary CellCiphr® toxicity prediction technology, and predictive modelling using PBPK and QSAR techniques, including Cloe® PK for in vivo PK prediction. For more information, see www.cyprotex.com.