Melbourne Australia; 17 April 2013 - Starpharma Holdings Ltd (ASX: SPL; OTCQX: SPHRY) today announced it has been granted three new patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which strengthen and expand the Company’s patent estate for its drug delivery platform.
The patents provide “composition of matter” protection for Starpharma’s dendrimer technologies for drug delivery out to 2029 in the United States, which is the world’s largest pharmaceutical market for several important drug classes.
China’s patent office has also informed the Company that it has allowed a similarly broad, drug delivery-related patent for Starpharma in this important Asian market. This fourth patent, to expire in 2027, will be granted once an administrative process is complete. “The granting of these patents adds to Starpharma’s considerable dendrimer intellectual property portfolio and expands the Company’s patents on drug delivery-related applications,” said Starpharma CEO Dr Jackie Fairley.
“They provide a firm footing for the commercialisation of our drug delivery technology, via our internal programs and work with partners including some of the largest global pharmaceutical companies.”
The patents offer broad and long-standing protection, and are in addition to other patent filings which encompass the Company’s leading delivery candidate - a dendrimer-enhanced version of the anti-cancer drug docetaxel (Taxotere®).
Dr Fairley also noted the granting of these patents coincides with growing interest in nanomedicine by pharmaceutical companies, and a strong deal-making environment.
“In 2013 alone we have seen Pfizer, Amgen and Astellas Pharma each sign deals in the nanomedicine space with the aim of progressing pre-clinical drug candidates to market.
The value of those three deals total almost $700 Million in upfront and potential royalty payments, reflecting growing interest in this emerging and high-potential field of medicine.”
This increased activity is supported by industry estimates of the market for nanomedicinebased oncology drugs growing from $5.5 Billion in 2011 to $12.7 Billion in 2016.
The new patents provide broad protection around the function of Starpharma’s dendrimers in drug delivery. Dendrimer formulations of existing drugs offer the ability to create proprietary products which have advantages such as improved drug efficacy, reduced toxicity, improved solubility, extended drug half-life and targeting of pharmaceuticals to specific cells or tissues. The patents are not limited by disease area or route of delivery, and apply to dendrimer applications involving many classes of drugs such as small molecules, proteins, peptides and antibodies.
More information how Starpharma is applying this technology in its own pipeline can be found at www.starpharma.com
About Starpharma
Starpharma Holdings Limited (ASX:SPL, OTCQX:SPHRY), located in Melbourne Australia, is an ASX 300 company and is a world leader in the development of dendrimer products for pharmaceutical, life science and other applications.
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 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. Drug Delivery partners include GSK, Lilly and AstraZeneca. In its internal program Starpharma has announced significant tumour-targeting results in its docetaxel (Taxotere®) program, with animal studies showing its dendrimer-enhanced version of docetaxel to have significantly superior anti-cancer effects across a range of important cancer types including breast, prostate, lung and ovarian tumour, when compared to Taxotere® (docetaxel).
In agrochemicals Starpharma has a series of partnerships with leading industry players including Nufarm (ASX:NUF) and Makhteshim Agan as well as internal programs including an enhanced version of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup®).
For Further Information:
Media:
Buchan Consulting
Rebecca Wilson
Mob: +61 417 382 391
rwilson@buchanwe.com.au
Danny Rose
Mob: +61 407 25 00 88
drose@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
This document contains certain forward-looking statements, relating to Starpharma’s business, which can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “promising”, “plans”, “anticipated”, “will”, “project”, “believe”, “forecast”, “expected”, “estimated”, “targeting”, “aiming”, “set to”, “potential”, “seeking to”, “goal”, “could provide”, “intends”, “is being developed”, “could be”, “on track”, or similar expressions, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential filings or marketing approvals, or potential future sales of product candidates. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no assurance that any existing or future regulatory filings will satisfy the FDA’s and other health authorities’ requirements regarding any one or more product candidates nor can there be any assurance that such product candidates will be approved by any health authorities for sale in any market or that they will reach any particular level of sales. In particular, management’s expectations regarding the approval and commercialization of the product candidates could be affected by, among other things, unexpected clinical trial results, including additional analysis of existing clinical data, and new clinical data; unexpected regulatory actions or delays, or government regulation generally; our ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry, and general public pricing pressures; and additional factors that involve significant risks and uncertainties about our products, product candidates, financial results and business prospects. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Starpharma is providing this information as of the date of this document and does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document as a result of new information, future events or developments or otherwise.
