Asterand clears Valley bank debt
Asterand, the cash crippled Cambridge UK life sciences company, has completed the sale of its human tissue business and settled its more than $9 million debts to secured creditors.
The company says it has now paid its debt to Silicon Valley Bank and also to holders of BioSeek loan notes.The debts were called in when Asterand defaulted – triggering a financial crisis that threatened the company’s chances of survival.
That fight goes on but Asterand has at least knocked away the gun being held to its head. The net cash proceeds of the disposal – around $7.6m – cleared the balance of secured debt which had totalled $9,039m.
As Business Weekly reported in June, Asterand had entered into a conditional agreement to dispose of its human tissue business to two wholly owned subsidiaries of stem cell pioneer Stemgent, Inc. for $9 million (£5.784m).
Shareholders recently backed the deal and the disposal was completed yesterday, allowing immediate settlement in full of the two major debts.
The Cambridge UK technology has landed in good hands. Stemgent, based in Cambridge Massachusetts, works alongside some of the world's leading stem cell scientists in developing innovative technology and application solutions that provide researchers the tools to investigate and understand cellular reprogramming.
