Heraeus Medical GmbH Signs Exclusive License And Development Agreement With Locate Therapeutics For Orthopaedic Applications

Wehrheim, December 10, 2014 – Heraeus Medical GmbH announced today an agreement with Locate Therapeutics to license the intellectual property surrounding the use of TAOS® in orthopaedic applications and the inception of the first development program in this field. The agreement gives Heraeus Medical GmbH the rights to the future co-developed orthopaedic products as well as the processes involved in manufacturing the final product. Locate Therapeutics has the full capabilities to carry out such development work. The agreement takes the form of a standard upfront and milestone payment structure.

Locate is a specialist regenerative medicine and device company which has been incubated by University of Nottingham. With grant funding and financial assistance from Wellcome Trust and the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK) the company has developed TAOS™ a patented platform polymer technology with multiple medical applications. The TAOS (Targeted, Orchestrated Signaling) technology is a world first in tissue repair. It enables the precision focus of therapeutic signals and provides an optimal structure to support tissue repair. Uniquely, TAOS can accommodate and promote the actions of receptor-binding moieties, locally-applied drugs, and emergent biological & cell-based therapies. “Regenerative orthopaedics solutions is an important part of Heraeus Medical`s future portfolio strategy. Locate Therapeutics has the expertise, technical capabilities and intellectual property to allow us to make an accelerated step into this exciting field of medicine and to strengthen our current regenerative product pipeline”, said Dr André Kobelt, CEO of Heraeus Medical GmbH.

Commenting for Locate, Robin Quirk, Director said, “we are delighted to be able to commence our first partnered development program with Heraeus Medical, a company that really understands the needs and opportunities that exist in the regenerative medicine space, as well as having the direct market access to be able to bring these solutions effectively to the patient.”

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About Heraeus Medical

Heraeus Medical develops, manufactures and markets biomaterials and accessories to make an essential contribution to improving surgical results in bone and joint surgery as well as infection management.

Heraeus Medical is a global business unit of the Hanau-based precious metal and technology group Heraeus, which is a globally active family-run enterprise with a history of more than 160 years. The Heraeus group provides high-end solutions to lastingly strengthen customers’ competitive position. The areas of competence include precious metals, materials and technologies, sensors, biomaterials and medical devices, quartz glass and specialty light sources. In the financial year 2013, Heraeus achieved a revenue from the sale of products of €3.6 bn, while the revenue from precious metal trading was €13.5 bn. With about 12,500 employees in more than 110 companies world-wide, Heraeus is in a leading position on its global sales markets.

About Locate

Locate is a privately owned University of Nottingham spin out company, which has been formed around the research interests of Professor Kevin Shakesheff who is Director of the Wolfson Centre for Stem Cells, Tissue Engineering and Modeling (STEM) at the University of Nottingham. Professor Shakesheff’s inventions and scientific breakthroughs have resulted in over 220 peer-reviewed full papers that have been cited more than 6,000 times to date. He currently holds a prestigious European Research Council Advanced Grant within an active research portfolio of more than £10 million. In 2013 he was appointed as Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Hub in Acellular Technologies. More than £2.5m of grant funding, including £1m from the Wellcome Trust, has already been invested in the development of TAOS, which has been robustly validated in a number of important regenerative medicine and drug delivery applications. These have attracted a number of important early specialty pharma and cell therapy research and development partners underlining the commercial potential of the technology and the company. In Q2 2013 the Technology Strategy Board/Innovate UK awarded Locate a £1.39m grant over three years to develop TAOS in combination with statins, widely-available generic drugs, for a presently unlicensed osteoinductive mode of action.

For more information on Heraeus Medical please contact:

Dr. André Kobelt
Managing Director
Heraeus Medical GmbH
Philipp-Reis-Str. 8/13
61273 Wehrheim
Germany
eMail: andre.kobelt@heraeus.com

For more information about Locate Therapeutics please contact:
Robin Quirk
Director
MediCity
Thane Road, Beeston
Nottingham, UK
E-mail: rquirk@locatetherapeutics.com

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