Melbourne, Australia; 14 January 2014: Starpharma (ASX: SPL, OTCQX: SPHRY) today announced that following a submission to AusIndustry, it is eligible to receive an additional estimated A$2.3 million cash in R&D tax incentive for overseas R&D activities for its Dendrimer-Docetaxel program.
Starpharma will also receive the 45% R&D tax incentive for eligible Australian expenditure for the Dendrimer-Docetaxel program, including the clinical trial that will commence shortly. The AusIndustry submission supports the clinical and regulatory activities over a three year period beginning in the 2012/13 financial year.
This advance finding is separate from the previously announced substantial overseas tax incentive for the VivaGel® bacterial vaginosis program under the R&D Tax program.
It is anticipated that following lodgement of the company’s 2012/13 tax return, a $4.7 million cash refund will be received in the current financial year.
Starpharma CEO Dr Jackie Fairley said: “The R&D tax incentive is an important program to support Australian companies developing new pharmaceuticals and this positive ruling for Docetaxel is timely as this product moves into the clinic.”
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®).
Media:
Buchan Consulting
Rebecca Wilson
Mob: +61 417 382 391
rwilson@buchanwe.com.au
Starpharma:
Dr Jackie Fairley, Chief Executive Officer
Nigel Baade, CFO and Company Secretary
+61 3 8532 2704
investor.relations@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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