Melbourne, Australia; 11 November 2013: Starpharma Holdings Ltd (ASX: SPL, OTCQX: SPHRY) today announced the selection of Mr Robert Thomas for appointment to the Board as a non-executive director. He will be appointed in December 2013 and will assume the role of Chairman mid-year when Mr Peter Bartels retires as part of a deliberate succession plan and board renewal.
Mr Thomas has a strong background in financial services and is a non executive director on a number of listed companies in Australia and the United States. He has more than 35 years’ experience in the securities industry with Potter Partners (now UBS), County Natwest and Citigroup. He is currently Chairman of TAL Limited (formerly Tower Australia Limited), Gragher Capital Securities and the NSW State Library.
He is the immediate past non-executive Chairman of HeartWare Limited and remains a non-executive director of that company. He is also a director of ASX listed REVA Medical Inc., Virgin Australia Limited and Biotron Limited. He holds a Bachelor of Economics from Monash University and is a fellow of the Securities Institute of Australia. He is also a Master Stockbroker and is a Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors.
Commenting on his decision to join the Starpharma Board, Rob Thomas said: “I have been following Starpharma for some time and have been watching their recent progress with great interest. I am enthusiastic about the commercial potential of the company’s technology and welcome the opportunity to become involved with the company. I look forward to working with CEO Jackie Fairley and the other members of the Board.”
Chairman Mr Peter Bartels said: “Rob is an excellent candidate for the chairman’s position and we look forward to welcoming him to the Board and the broader Starpharma family. His deep financial experience combined with a very solid understanding of the global healthcare environment will be highly complementary to the existing Board.”
Peter Bartels will retire as Chairman and non-executive director of the Company in mid-2014.
Mr Bartels joined Starpharma in 2003 and he has overseen a period of significant development. Starpharma’s product portfolio has matured with a number of near term commercial products, and value of the Company’s dendrimer platform has grown significantly with the application to multiple products across pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.
“Starpharma has developed from a budding technology company with a collection of high-potential patents to, today, a company with an international profile, an extensive portfolio of clinical stage products, commercial partnerships and approaching commercialisation of our lead product VivaGel®,” Mr Bartels said.
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®).
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 authorities’ requirements regarding any one or more product candidates nor can there be any assurance that such product candidates will be approved by any 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 trial results, including additional analysis of existing data, and new 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.
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