Small-Cap Biotech M&A, via the Internet

Executive Summary

Robert Naismith, CEO of eMed Securities, a private investment banking firm, has just sold tiny, troubled American biotech firm Cistron to Celltech in the UK--via the Internet. Naismith put a lot of work into building a case that Cistron's science was good, even if its corporate history was less than sterling. Then he e-mailed letters tailored to different types of potential buyers and watched the information he'd posted on his firm's web site get 30,000 hits in the two weeks. EMed intends to keep on leveraging the Internet, not only to promote M&A of small-cap life science companies, but to help those firms attract retail capital. On-line roadshows are on the way, he says.