ValiRx PLC on Wednesday said it acquired the scientific assets of Imagen Therapeutics Ltd from its appointed liquidators for £170,000.

The Essex, England-based life science company focused on early-stage cancer therapeutics and women’s health said the consideration was paid to liquidators from its existing resources.

Imagen Therapeutics was a pharmaceutical services company which offered a patient-derived screening platform to global clients.

ValiRx said Imagen’s biobank of patient-derived cells and relevant equipment will be transferred and integrated into its subsidiary Inaphea BioLabs Ltd in the MediCity development in Nottingham over the next few months.

The company added that the acquisition and rapid assimilation of the Imagen assets will ‘transform the service offering’ of Inaphea, and broaden its market opportunity.

Imagen Chief Scientific Officer Gareth Griffiths will offer his consultancy services to assist with the integration of the patient-derived cell line services at the Inaphea facility.

ValiRx Chief Executive Officer Suzy Dilly said: ‘This is an important step towards our ambition to make our assays more closely aligned to a complex human system, rather than rely on commercially available immortalised cell lines. This transaction gives us significant lab equipment at a substantial discount to our budgeted cost for these items had we purchased new, with the cell lines and other intellectual property acquired at modest additional cost.

‘We believe these services will generate near-term market interest and differentiate Inaphaea’s offering. Furthermore, the equipment, acquired at a fraction of market prices, will support both the new cancer drug screening services and Inaphaea’s wider business interests.’

Shares in ValiRx were up 3.2% at 9.39 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.

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