Cassiopea, Cosmo Pharmaceutical’s spin-out, will be listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange. Cosmo Pharmaceutical plans to reduce its current 97% shareholding to below the 50% bar. The majority shareholder will give away the control of its subsidiary in order to have enough cash after the end of its Phase III ACNE-treatment, currently running in the US and Europe.
Cosmo plans to offer around a 62% of the newly available shares to novel investors, while the remaining third of the shares will be offered in a preferred option for Cosmo’ shareholders. Dietmar Hopp’s dievini fund, Heinrich Herz and some of Cosmo’s senior managers already expressed their interest in Cassiopeia, attracted by its strong dermatology pipeline.
In fact, the dermatology field is a market where little innovation takes place despite the many existing opportunities. In the last 15 years, there have been no NCEs (new chemical entities) in acne on the US market, a fact that contrasts with the prevalence of the disorder. In the States, 17 million people have acne and 85% of the population between the ages of 12 and 24 get acne… Not a bad target.
Cosmo might think that the business is worth this lose of control on its spin-out in favor of reaching a bigger market. Historically, dermatology has had the lowest product failure rate in clinical trials, and Cassiopea’s Winlevi is on the right track, finishing its Phase III.