Melbourne, Australia; Monday 17 December 2012: Starpharma (ASX:SPL; OTCQX:SPHRY) today announced the appointment of an additional Vice President of Business Development with extensive pharmaceutical licensing experience.
Ms Eve Williamson, who will commence in the role with Starpharma in the New Year, has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years including senior roles in business development, marketing and sales, pricing and reimbursement, and clinical research.
Eve has spent the last 12 years in business development, during which time she was responsible for the negotiation of more than 40 licence agreements with leading international companies including Cephalon, Pfizer, Watson, Roche and Chugai.
With a strong partnering model at the core of Starpharma’s commercial strategy and with multiple near-term products opportunities, Ms Williamson’s skills and experience will complement the Company’s already strong business development team, which in recent years has secured partnerships with leading companies including Lilly, GSK, AstraZeneca, Ansell, Okamoto and Nufarm.
Ms Williamson has worked for companies including Astra Zeneca, FH Faulding/Mayne/ Hospira and a private company, Phebra, where she was responsible for significant sales growth. At Hospira/Mayne she headed up the Business Development Team for the Asia Pacific region driving double digit growth via internal projects and an extensive licensing program. At Hospira Eve also had significant involvement in the development and launch of a number of oncology products including docetaxel.
“Eve joins Starpharma at an important and exciting period of our development,” said Starpharma CEO Dr Jackie Fairley. “The Company’s dendrimer-enhanced version of docetaxel has shown enhanced efficacy and tumour targeting abilities. Eve’s extensive experience in signing the deals that are critical to bringing products like this to market will ensure Starpharma remains well placed to capitalise on the huge potential we see across our portfolio of innovative drug and agrochemical candidates.”
Ms Williamson is a registered Pharmacist and worked as a hospital pharmacist prior to joining industry in 1989. Eve also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Business from the University of Melbourne.
Starpharma’s underlying technology is built around dendrimers – a type of synthetic nanoscale polymer that is highly regular in size and structure and well suited to pharmaceutical and other uses. Starpharma has three core development programs: VivaGel® portfolio, drug delivery, and agrochemicals with the Company developing a number of products internally and others via commercial partnerships.
Starpharma’s lead product is VivaGel® (SPL7013 Gel), a gel-based formulation of a proprietary dendrimer. VivaGel® is under clinical development for the treatment and prevention of bacterial vaginosis (BV) and also as a vaginal microbicide to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted infections including HIV and genital herpes. Starpharma has also signed separate licence agreements with Ansell Limited (ASX:ANN) and Okamoto Industries Inc (Tokyo Stock Exchange) to market a value-added, VivaGel®-coated condom. Ansell manufactures and sells leading condom brands worldwide, including Lifestyles®, ZERO® and SKYN®. Okamoto is the market leader for condoms sold in Japan, the world’s second largest condom market.
In the wider pharmaceutical and life science fields, Starpharma has both partnered and internal programs in Drug Delivery. Partners include GSK, Lilly and AstraZeneca. In its internal program Starpharma recently announced significant tumour-targeting results in its docetaxel (Taxotere®) program, with animal studies resulting in levels of the cancer drug in tumour tissue more than 40 times greater than seen with the conventional formulation. The company is also exploring dendrimer opportunities in agrochemicals and crop protection in a series of partnerships with leading industry players including Nufarm (ASX:NUF) as well as with internal programs including an enhanced version of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup®).
Media:
Buchan Consulting
Rebecca Wilson
Mob: +61 417 382 391
rwilson@buchanwe.com.au
Haley Price
Mob: +61 423 139 163
hprice@buchanwe.com.au
Starpharma:
Dr Jackie Fairley, Chief Executive Officer
+61 3 8532 2704
Ben Rogers, Company Secretary
ben.rogers@starpharma.com
www.starpharma.com
Forward Looking Statements
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