Change of Adviser and AIM Rule 17 notice

RNS Number : 0640G

Provexis PLC

01 November 2018

 

1 November 2018

Provexis plc

("Provexis" or the "Company")

Change of Adviser and AIM Rule 17 notice

Provexis, the business that develops, licenses and sells the proprietary, scientifically-proven Fruitflow® heart-health functional food ingredient, is pleased to announce the appointment of Allenby Capital Limited as the Company's nominated adviser and sole broker with immediate effect.

Pursuant to AIM Rule 17, the Company makes the following disclosures in relation to Dawson Buck, Chairman of Provexis, and his directorship of three inter-connected companies.

Mr Buck was a director of Cinofni Limited when it entered into Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation on 12 March 2014. The company had previously been in Members' Voluntary Liquidation and the company was ultimately dissolved on 19 August 2016 having paid a first and final dividend of 90.01p in the £.  

Mr Buck was a director of Iora Limited when it entered into Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation on 12 March 2014. The company remains in liquidation and Mr Buck remains as a director of the company. According to the liquidators' annual progress report dated 8 May 2017, unsecured creditor claims received to date totalled £480,246 and the only asset remaining to be realised was an inter-company debt of £456,166.  

Mr Buck was appointed as a director of OCOROT 2011 Limited (previously called Infonic Document Management Limited) on 18 October 2010 and resigned on the same date. The company went into Administration on 22 February 2011 and was ultimately dissolved on 28 February 2015. The total value of creditors' claims received in the Liquidation was £1,254,171 with a dividend paid of 32.99p in the £.

For further information please contact:

Provexis plc Dawson Buck, Chairman Ian Ford, Finance Director	Tel:        [phone]                [e-mail]
Allenby Capital Limited Nick Naylor / Liz Kirchner	Tel:        [phone]

Notes for editors

About Provexis plc

AIM-listed Provexis is focused on the development, licensing and sales of its proprietary, scientifically-proven Fruitflow® heart-health functional food ingredient.

In May 2009, the Company's Fruitflow® technology was the first to be substantiated by the European Food Safety Authority ('EFSA') under the then new Article 13(5) for proprietary and emerging science. In December 2009 the European Commission authorised the health claim 'Helps maintain normal platelet aggregation, which contributes to healthy blood flow', which was the first wording to be authorised under Article 13(5).

In June 2010 it was announced that the Company had entered into a long-term Alliance Agreement with DSM Nutritional Products to commercialise Fruitflow®, through sales as an ingredient to brand owners in the food, beverage and dietary supplement categories. The Alliance is seeing the partners collaborate to develop Fruitflow® in all major global markets.

More than 90 regional consumer healthcare brands have now been launched by direct customers of DSM, and a number of further regional brands have been launched through DSM's distributor channels.

The Company and DSM have seen an encouraging increase in brand awareness and customer interest in Fruitflow® over the last two years, with an increasing number of further commercial projects being initiated with prospective customers, including some prospective customers which are part of global businesses.

In September 2018 the Company announced that the total projected annual sales value of the prospective sales pipeline for Fruitflow then stood at a substantial multiple of existing annual sales.

In June 2016 the Company launched a high quality dietary supplement product containing Fruitflow® and Omega-3 which is being sold from a separate, dedicated website www.fruitflowplus.com on a mail order basis, the product is also available to purchase from Amazon.co.uk.

The Company has been engaged in a two stage collaboration agreement with the University of Oslo to undertake further research into the relationship between Fruitflow® and blood pressure regulation. In December 2016 the Company announced the results from the second stage of the collaboration, a pilot study which indicated that a standard dose of Fruitflow® significantly lowered average 24-hour systolic blood pressure. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure were shown to be significantly lower whilst trial subjects were awake, a clinically relevant reduction in blood pressure. In September 2017 the results from the blood pressure collaboration were published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition.

In December 2017 the Company announced the filing of a patent application relating to the use of Fruitflow® in protecting against the adverse effects of air pollution on the body's cardiovascular system. Recent laboratory work has shown that Fruitflow® can reduce the platelet activation caused by airborne particulate matter, such as that from diesel emissions, by approximately one third. The beneficial effects of this reduction can be observed in laboratory models representing healthy subjects as well as in models representing subjects with an underlying cardiovascular problem.

In August 2018 Fruitflow®+ Omega-3 was listed in more than 660 Holland & Barrett stores across the UK and Ireland, together with Holland & Barrett Online.

The Company is working with DSM and BY-HEALTH Co., Ltd, a £3bn listed Chinese dietary supplement business, to support the planned launch of some Fruitflow® based products in the Chinese market.

In September 2018 the Company confirmed that the planned launch by BY-HEATH of a number of Fruitflow® based products in the Chinese market, with potentially substantial volumes, is progressing well, with activities driven at present by the need to obtain 'blue cap' health claim status for Fruitflow® as a dietary supplement with the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA).

Clinical studies conducted in China are typically required to obtain blue cap health claim status, and a significant investment in six separate studies, in support of the Fruitflow® based products which BY-HEALTH plans to launch in China, is being undertaken at BY-HEALTH's expense.

Two studies have been successfully completed in China, one study is currently ongoing at a Chinese clinical site and three further planned human studies have been confirmed by BY-HEALTH.

The two completed studies (a human study and an animal study) showed excellent results in use for Fruitflow®, and BY-HEALTH intends to make the relevant blue cap submission to the CFDA by the end of 2018, to include reference to the Company's existing European Food Safety Authority ('EFSA') health claim for Fruitflow.

BY-HEALTH has launched a Fruitflow® sports nutrition product in China under its GymMax brand, for the exclusive use of Chinese national athletes.

In April 2017 the Company announced it had entered into a memorandum of understanding with BY-HEALTH, intended to result in a research and collaboration agreement with BY-HEALTH for Fruitflow®, focussing on BY-HEALTH's research programme into the development of new products that contribute to cardiovascular health, particularly in the field of blood pressure regulation.

The proposed research and collaboration agreement is intended to include a clinical trial which will be conducted in China, and it is intended that the Company, BY-HEALTH and a third party Chinese research organisation will sign the research and collaboration agreement in the first half of 2019, with the bulk of the research programme to be completed in 2019. This will effectively be BY-HEALTH's seventh clinical study for Fruitflow®.

It is envisaged that the Company will provide scientific and technical support for Fruitflow® to BY-HEALTH throughout the collaboration, with further potential research projects for Fruitflow® between the Company and BY-HEALTH now under discussion.

There are more than 230m people in China who are currently thought to have cardiovascular disease, and a significant increase in cardiovascular events is expected in China over the course of the next decade based on population aging and growth alone (source: World Health Organisation - Cardiovascular diseases, China). China is now the world's second-largest pharmaceuticals market, measured by how much patients and the state spend on drugs (source: health-care information company IQVIA). The Company believes that Fruitflow® has the potential to play an important role in the Chinese cardiovascular health market.

Provexis was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Reading, Berkshire.

Provexis shares are traded on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PXS.

For further information, please visit www.provexis.com

 

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