Pfizer makes $179 million deal to acquire Brisbane telehealth company
PFIZER’S BRISBANE DEAL
An Australian university start-up has been snapped up by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for $179 million in an deal inked on Monday, it has been announced.
The U.S. pharmaceutical giant has acquired ResApp Health Limited, an ASX-listed company born.
Photo: TWA
The startup was born at the University of Queensland, and created an app that can “diagnose COVID-19 by analysing a patient’s cough” and “is 92 per cent accurate”, according to the company.
The university’s ‘commercial arm’, UniQuest, licenced to ResApp in September 2014. The Brisbane-based company has been on a long commercialisation road with its respiratory disease diagnosis technology.
Since then, ResApp has raised $29 million to develop the technology, and when the pandemic arrived on Australia’s shores two years ago, the firm focused its efforts on a COVID-19 diagnosis.
Pfizer Inc’s Australian subsidiary has entered a binding agreement to acquire all ResApp shares for 11.5 cents each, representing a 27.8 per cent premium to their closing price on Friday.
This implies a total equity value of around US $100 million (or AUD $179 million).
The acquisition would represent a 422 per cent return for investors who participated in the 2015 backdoor listing for Resapp, with plans for the multinational to take this technology ‘to the next stage’.
THE APP’S FEATURES
According to the company, the app uses machine learning to diagnose and measure the severity of respiratory diseases from audio recordings on smartphones.
The smartphone technology, which was developed ‘in consultation with medical practitioners’, operates similarly to a doctor using a stethoscope to listen for sounds produced by a patient’s body.
The app can reportedly deliver a COVID screening testing result in one minute.
ResApp’s algorithm was built by using cough audio recordings, self-reported symptoms, as well as results from COVID-19 PCR test results.
The technology also relies on reporting of other symptoms, such as a fever or a sore throat.
Photo: APO
It can diagnose a patient using acoustic biomarkers and analyses the data with advanced AI models.
Clinical trials for the app are still continuing.
Why would Pfizer be so interested in this Brisbane company and their technology?
According to one article, the research has heavy links to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
That tells you all you need to know.Rumours of ResApp’s merger have been around since April, but the deal was only finalised and announced this week.
The University of Queensland has been at the head of the charge in relation to biopharma research, transhumanism, cultural marxism and much more. An ongoing shift for decades.
Now Pfizer’s fingers are also embedded in the institution.
Source: https://tottnews.com/2022/09/28/pfizer-acquires-brisbane-company/
