Georgia Bio Release: Life Sci Organization Highlights Deals Of The Year Spotlight Financings, Acquisitions And IPO

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Georgia Bio announced its 2017 Deals of the Year for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare IT and medical device companies in the following categories – private financing, initial public offering, public financing, and acquisitions – reflecting a broad range of activity. The annual Deal of the Year awards recognize transactions by life sciences companies in Georgia such as financings, partnering agreements and government grants that are significant to the state’s industry development.

Deals of the Year are awarded to one or more companies or institutions for the most significant financial or commercial transactions closed from November 1, 2015-October 31, 2016. The recipients will receive their awards at the Georgia Bio Annual Awards Dinner January 26, 6 pm to 9 pm, at the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North. Now in its 19th year, the Georgia Bio annual awards dinner brings together industry leaders to advance the growth of the life sciences industry and foster strategic partnerships that can create a healthier world. Other leading companies, executives, researchers and dedicated individuals will receive Georgia Bio Awards at the dinner. Learn more and register at www.gabio.org/awards.

The recipients are: Alimera Sciences, Inc.; Arbor Pharmaceuticals, LLC; Axion BioSystems, Inc.; Clearside Biomedical, Inc.; and CryoLife, Inc.

Acquisitions
Arbor Pharmaceuticals, LLC
In May 2016, Arbor Pharmaceuticals, LLC (“Arbor”) announced that it had signed a definitive agreement under which the company acquired XenoPort for $7.03 per share in cash, or a total equity value of approximately $467 million. As part of this acquisition, Arbor gained the commercialization rights to Horizant (gabapentin enacarbil) and a pipeline of products in late-stage development. Horizant is also being studied as a potential treatment for patients with alcohol use disorder through a collaboration with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Arbor is currently focused on the cardiovascular, hospital, pediatric, and neuroscience markets as well as generics through its Wilshire division. The company has over 700 employees including sales professionals promoting its products to physicians, hospitals and pharmacists. Arbor currently sells over twenty FDA approved products with over thirty more in development. For more information, visit www.arborpharma.com.

CryoLife, Inc.
Headquartered in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, CryoLife is a leader in the manufacturing, processing, and distribution of implantable living tissues and medical devices used in cardiac surgical procedures. CryoLife markets and sells products in more than 80 countries worldwide. CryoLife is being honored for its January 2016 acquisition of On-X Life Technologies Holdings, an Austin, Texas-based, privately held mechanical heart valve company. For additional information about CryoLife, visit www.cryolife.com.

Private Financing
Axion BioSystems, Inc.
Axion BioSystems, a life science company located in Atlanta, GA, has developed the industry’s first high-throughput microelectrode array (MEA) product line. MEAs are used for the in-vitro investigation of networks of electrically active cells (e.g. neurons, cardiac cells, muscle cells etc.) for screening compounds, chemicals, toxins etc. When combined with modern cell culture technologies, Axion’s platform allows scientists to model human heart-beats and brain activity in a dish. Axion’s products are used by pharmaceutical and biotech companies, governmental agencies, and universities for drug safety, drug discovery, and disease modeling assays. In May 2016, Axion Biosystems closed a $6 million equity financing round which included funds from the Georgia Research Alliance Venture Fund. Funds will be used to grow Axion's core life science instrumentation product line. For more information, visit https://www.axionbiosystems.com/.

Initial Public Offering & Private Financing
Clearside Biomedical, Inc.
Clearside Biomedical, Inc., headquartered in Alpharetta, GA, is a publicly traded, ophthalmic biopharmaceutical company that envisions a world without blindness. Clearside relentlessly pursues transformative, elegant, precise solutions to restore and preserve vision. Clearside is developing advanced clinical and pre-clinical candidates using a proprietary treatment approach offering unprecedented access to the back of the eye through the suprachoroidal space (SCS™). This offers potentially meaningful treatment benefit to patients suffering from sight threatening diseases like uveitis, retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema and wet age-related macular degeneration. Clearside is being honored for the December 2015 closing of a $20 million Series C financing and the June 2016 announcement of the pricing of its initial public offering of 7,200,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $7.00 per share. For more information, visit http://clearsidebio.com/.

Public Financing
Alimera Sciences, Inc.
Alimera Sciences, a pharmaceutical company located in Atlanta, Georgia that focuses on diseases affecting the back of the eye, or retina, closed on an underwritten public offering of its common stock in August of 2016 for gross proceeds of $26.5 million. For more information, visit http://www.alimerasciences.com/.

For a list of past Georgia Bio award recipients, click here.

Georgia Bio (www.gabio.org) is the state’s life science industry association whose members include pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, medical centers, universities and research institutes, government groups and other business organizations involved in the development of life sciences related products and services.

Note to Editors: Credentialed members of the news media are invited to attend. Registration is complimentary. Please contact Maria Thacker (404-920-2042; mthacker@gabio.org).