The opportunity exists for wholesale investors to express interest in an investment in InsituGen.

The greatest threats to athletic integrity are designer performance enhancing drugs. These drugs are notoriously hard to identify. Every measure designed to identify a doping agent is circumvented by a new designer drug.

In response, InsituGen have developed a novel test to detect doping, not by looking for a specific drug, but by detecting chemical mechanisms common to entire classes of drugs - this makes engineering new undetectable drugs much more difficult. The company is currently focused on catching drug cheats in the horse & camel racing industries and expects to extend its product range to human athlete testing within twelve months.  

Doping in racing not only compromises the fairness and authenticity of the sport it also has the potential for welfare concerns because many performance enhancing drugs, masking agents, or recovery drugs, are not clinically approved, especially at the doses used. As a result, to maintain the integrity of racing stables and the fairness for racing fans, testing racehorses for the presence of banned substances has become very well executed and regulated. InsituGen's products have the potential to rapidly improve anti-doping screening in the racing industry.

Pacific Channel is leading an investment into Insitugen investment and $2.2m is spoken for currently. Pacific Channel has also secured the right to place co-investment of $3 million on the same terms. The pre money valuation is $8.5 million. Funds will be used to secure market share in the animal racing industry, product development for human athlete testing and product validation in the Veterinary Diagnostic market.  

InsituGen is an attractive investment for three primary reasons: 

• Commercial traction: InsituGen has recently signed a global exclusive distribution agreement with Berlinger Special AG – a Swiss company (established 1865) and a global leader in the anti-doping industry. Their products are sold in over 175 countries.  
• Proprietary and differentiated product: Current methods of athlete drug testing are spectrometry based and can only detect molecular structures that have been pre-set in their libraries. Underground chemists produce hundreds of new 'designer' anabolic molecules every day, that go undetected. The company’s co-founder and Chief Scientist Prof Alison Heather has developed a multi-patented (pending) screening method that measures the anabolic effect caused by all steroids with androgenic activity. This test can detect these new designer androgens based on their biological activity rather than their structure. Such technology will enable testing laboratories to remain ahead of the underground chemists and dopers for the first time. InsituGen also intends to use this technology in Veterinary and Consumer diagnostics after developing the aforementioned beach-head market. 
• Syndicate of value-add investors: Pacific Channel is joined in this round by a consortium of New Zealand institutional, early stage and strategic investors including Kiwisaver Booster, AIM, New Zealand Enterprise Angels, and Berlinger. Having other investors around the table gives us confidence that we can continue to fund the companies future growth. Their decision to invest also provides validation that third parties have done institutional-grade diligence and have seen value at this valuation. Berlinger's investment as a leading multinational player in the clean sports industry also validates market demand and channel to market.  

Please click here for a recent presentation made to existing shareholders and prospective investors.