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Evolva Holding SA (formerly known as Arpida Ltd) today announced the final closing of its Series B financing round, the completion of its merger with Evolva SA, the change of the name from Arpida Ltd to Evolva Holding SA and the listing of its shares issued in connection with the merger.
On 11 December 2009, the merger was successfully completed, whereby Evolva SA became a wholly owned subsidiary of Arpida Ltd, and Arpida Ltd subsequently changed its name to Evolva Holding SA.
The 117,836,490 registered shares in Evolva Holding SA, which were newly issued on 11 December 2009 in connection with the merger, are listed on the main standard of the SIX Swiss Exchange as of today and rank pari passu with the existing already listed 21,094,104 registered shares in Evolva Holding SA.
As a result, a total of 138,930,594 registered shares in Evolva Holding SA are currently listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The newly issued shares in Evolva Holding SA will be subject to a lock-up agreement until 14 December 2010.
The election of the new members of the Board of Directors by the Extraordinary General Meeting of Arpida Ltd of 26 November 2009 took effect at the closing of the merger. As of today, the Board consists of the following members: Prof Dr Erich Schlick (Chairman), Mr Jean-Philippe Tripet (vice-Chairman), Mr Neil Goldsmith, Dr André Lamotte, Dr Jacques Mallet, Mr Michel Pettigrew and Ms Ingelise Saunders.
As announced earlier, the CEO and CFO of Arpida Ltd. have stepped down at the closing of the merger. The management team has been replaced by that of Evolva SA.
Prior to the merger, Evolva SA completed its Series B financing round, pursuant to which it raised a total of CHF 44 million. The first part of the Series B financing round, which was announced on 22 October 2009, yielded CHF 28 million. The second part closed on 11 December 2009 and yielded an additional CHF 16 million.
New investor Entrepreneurs Fund and six existing investors (Novartis Bioventures, Dansk Innovation, Auriga Partners, Wellington Partners, BioMedInvest and Vinci Capital) participated in the second part of the Series B financing round.
In addition to the funds raised in the Series B financing round, Evolva received a firm commitment (together with an initial release of funds) to invest CHF 5 million in Evolva Biotech Private Ltd (Evolva’s Indian subsidiary) from Ventureast Trustee Company Private Limited.
The now available funds will allow the Evolva group to progress its clinical compounds through phase II proof-of-concept trials over the next 2-3 years, in particular EV-077 (cardio-renal indications), EV-086 (anti-fungal) and EV-075 (antiviral).
