Award of Grant and Collaboration with MedImmune UK

RNS Number : 8042D

N4 Pharma PLC

02 February 2018

 

N4 Pharma Plc

("N4 Pharma" or the "Company")

Award of Grant

and

Collaboration with MedImmune UK

N4 Pharma Plc (AIM: N4P), the specialist pharmaceutical company which reformulates existing drugs and vaccines to improve their performance, announces that it has been awarded a feasibility grant from Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency, to co-fund a collaborative project with MedImmune UK, a leading global biologics R&D company, to explore the manufacture of a prototype nanomedicine using N4 Pharma's Nuvec® system.

The grant is from Innovate UK's Medicines Manufacturing Round 1: Challenge Fund, which itself is funded through the UK Government's £70m Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to speed up the development of new medicines, details of which were announced on 22 January 2018 by Sam Gyimah, MP, the Universities and Science Minister. The project with MedImmune is expected to last for approximately nine months from 1 February 2018.

The grant is to enable N4 Pharma to develop manufacturing methods for Nuvec® particles loaded with therapeutic pDNA/mRNA encoding antigens and to demonstrate that such nanoparticles can be manufactured to the quality required for in-vivo studies. MedImmune will then evaluate these Nuvec formulations in relevant in-vitro and in-vivo models to demonstrate if they are able to deliver functional pDNA/mRNA capable of inducing an immune response.

Under the terms of the collaboration agreement with the Company, MedImmune has the right at any time during the collaboration project, and 3 months following its conclusion, to give notice that it wishes to negotiate the terms on which N4 would grant it an exclusive licence to utilise the results of the evaluation.

Further information on each of MedImmune UK and Innovate UK is set out below.

Nigel Theobald, CEO of N4 Pharma, commented: "We are delighted to have been awarded the feasibility grant from Innovate UK and to have the opportunity to work with MedImmune UK on this collaborative project. We continue to make great progress with our Nuvec® particles and we believe that MedImmune is the ideal partner to evaluate our nanoparticles in this field."

Enquiries:

N4 Pharma Plc Nigel Theobald, CEO	Via Alma PR
Stockdale Securities Tom Griffiths	Tel: [phone]
Beaufort Securities Elliot Hance	Tel: [phone]
Alma PR Josh Royston Robyn Fisher	Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone]

About N4 Pharma

N4 Pharma is a specialist pharmaceutical company which reformulates existing drugs and vaccines to improve their performance.

N4 Pharma's reformulation work falls under two divisions:

• generic, already commercialised, drugs; and

• delivery of novel and existing vaccines.

N4 Pharma has identified a number of established drugs that could be improved upon through its reformulation techniques. N4 Pharma's most advanced reformulation is for sildenafil, widely marketed as Viagra, where N4 Pharma is seeking to improve the speed at which the drug takes effect whilst also extending its duration of action.

N4 Pharma's reformulation approach should take approximately three years to obtain regulatory approval as opposed to the traditional process for new drugs of on average ten years. The cost and risk profile of this model is also significantly less than the traditional process. N4 Pharma's business model for generics is to take reformulated drugs from its portfolio through to the stage where it will license its newly reformulated drugs to pharmaceutical companies to commercialise them. N4 Pharma's revenues should be derived from up front milestone and royalty payments associated with the licence.

N4 Pharma's business model for vaccines is to undertake the required clinical work to demonstrate the capability of its delivery system as a cancer vaccine or therapeutic treatment so that it can license the technology to major players developing treatments in this area, again in return for up front milestone and royalty payments associated with the licence.

About MedImmune UK

MedImmune is part of Astra Zeneca, having been acquired in 2007 for $15.6bn. It is a leading global biologics R&D company with one of the largest, most robust pipelines in the industry, including more than 120 research projects and product candidates, that comprise nearly half of AstraZeneca's overall R&D portfolio. It is focused on three core therapeutic areas: Oncology; Respiratory, Inflammation and Autoimmune; and Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease. For further information visit:

https://www.medimmune.com/

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK is the UK's innovation agency. It works with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy. For further information on the recent announcment visit:

www.innovateuk.gov.uk

or

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/industrial-strategy-boost-for-uk-medicines-with-70-million-of-funding-to-help-develop-new-treatments

 

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