Life sciences firm collapsed into administration owing £10m
New documents have revealed the depth of creditor debt troubled drug discover firm Charnwood Discovery found itself in when it was sold out of administration in a pre-pack deal at the beginning of November.
Charnwood Molecular and Aurelia Bioscience, which trade as Charnwood Discovery, owed almost £10m to creditors – many of whom are unlikely to see any of the cash owed them, according to new documents filed by PwC at Companies House.
It was revealed at the beginning of this month that Derbyshire-based drug discovery, development and manufacturing organisation, Concept Life Sciences (CLS), which is backed by mid-market private equity investment firm Limerston Capital, had completed the acquisition of troubled Charnwood Discovery.
The deal saved almost 100 jobs.
Charnwood Discovery’s debt pile was made worse by its Loughborough base at the Charnwood Campus – the former home of life sciences giant Astra Zeneca – costing it £200,000 a month.
This, combined with a downturn in the funding markets for clinical research in 2022, meant that the firm embarked on a series of redundancies. However, this wasn’t enough to offset the high overheads of its property.
PwC was instructed to lead a sale process of the firm in January and in May a deal for RCapital take on Synova’s share of the firm was completed. But the administrators were unable to muster up any interest in the remaining share capital because of the high costs of running the business.
Due to creditor pressures from HMRC and its landlord Charnwood Campus, PwC was appointed as administrator on October 29. Charnwood Molecular and Aurelia Bioscience were sold to CLS on the same day for £239,000 and £113,000 respectively.
On completing the deal, Dr Ben Cliff, CEO of CLS, said: “Charnwood Discovery brings an outstanding team of scientific talent and an extensive global client base. Like CLS, they are deeply committed to excellence and innovation in accelerating drug discovery. By combining our strengths, we’re able to fully integrate our capabilities and significantly speed up the progression of promising drug candidates from development through clinical trials to commercial production—at up to twice the pace of the industry average.”
