The founder and chairman of a biotechnology company planning to quit the City has slammed the London stock market as ‘a complete waste of time’.
Italian entrepreneur Gabriele Cerrone, who floated Okyo Pharma in July 2018, said building a biotech company in the UK ‘is like trying to grow plants in the desert’.
Explaining his decision to delist the stock on May 12, he said the volume of shares traded in London is ‘negligible and does not justify the associated costs’.
And he complained investors are only interested in miners and oil giants.
Snub: Italian entrepreneur Gabriele Cerrone, who floated Okyo Pharma in July 2018, said building a biotech company in the UK ‘is like trying to grow plants in the desert’
The firm, which specialises in treating eye diseases and has a market cap of £28million, is also listed on the US tech market Nasdaq.
Cerrone told the Mail: ‘What I learnt about trying to create a niche biotech company in the UK is that it is like trying to grow plants in the desert.
‘It has been a complete waste of time and we never raised money from investment banks. There’s no biotech culture nor any liquidity in the United Kingdom at all.’
Okyo Pharma’s decision is another setback for the London Stock Exchange amid concerns over its status as one of the world’s leading equity markets.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has vowed to make the UK a ‘more attractive place to list’.
But Cerrone said that in the US ‘there are loads of hedge funds, high net worth individuals, analysts and a whole culture of wanting to invest in biotech which doesn’t exist here’.
