N4 Pharma Plc (LON:N4P), the specialist pharmaceutical company developing Nuvec®, a novel delivery system designed to carry nucleotides to be developed as cancer treatments and vaccines, has announced that it has entered into a research collaboration agreement with SRI International, an independent nonprofit research institute based in Silicon Valley, California to combine Nuvec® with SRI’s proprietary FOX Three Molecular Guidance System™ (MGS) with the aim of co-marketing the resultant combined technology.
Under the Agreement, the Company will collaborate with SRI to perform research to conjugate its MGS system to Nuvec® in order to increase intracellular delivery to specific target cells. On the back of the combined technology, N4 Pharma and SRI will work collaboratively to develop and pursue new business opportunities.
SRI’s MGS technology is designed to overcome cellular barriers that prevent intracellular delivery of large molecule biotherapeutics. The system uses proprietary technology that enables the delivery of macromolecular payloads to the target cell and then on to subcellular locations within those cells. SRI has developed a panel of 50 MGSs targeted at a wide variety of cell types, both diseased and healthy.
SRI has demonstrated that the MGS technology can deliver more than a dozen types of payloads – from functional enzymes, antibodies, and nucleic acids (including siRNA, ASOs, and DNA) to liposomes and nanoparticles – to targeted, intracellular molecular-target locations previously considered unreachable, and therefore, untreatable. For more information on MGS see: https://www.sri.com/platform/fox-three-molecular-guidance-system-mgs/.
The SRI Biosciences division the Company will be working with integrates basic biomedical research with drug and diagnostics discovery, and preclinical and clinical development. The team has advanced more than 200 drugs to clinical trials, and 25 have reached the market. The division is focused on novel platforms and programs in a variety of therapeutic areas targeting high unmet medical needs.
Kathlynn Brown, President of SRI’s Bioscience Division, commented:
“We’re excited to work with N4 Pharma to advance nucleic acid therapies and expand the number of applications of their Nuvec nanoparticle technology using the FOX Three Platform. The key properties of Nuvec, including preventing enzymatic breakdown of nucleotides and large surface area allowing multiple copy number of cargo, together with the targeting provided by MGS, may significantly enhance the use of nucleotide therapies. This partnership marks an exciting journey towards expanding treatment possibilities and transforming the landscape of biomedicine.”
Nigel Theobald, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented:
“We are delighted to be working with SRI and to have entered into this collaboration agreement. Combining our technologies successfully will lead to working with major pharma companies in the fields of oncology and vaccines with the exciting potential to develop novel products.
“SRI collaborates with a broad range of partners from small and virtual biotechnology companies to top ten pharmaceutical companies and other leading industry partners, which will give us unparalleled access to potential commercial partners on the back of any successful combined technology resulting from our research.
This marks an exciting new chapter for N4 Pharma and I look forward to providing further updates as the research work progresses, as well as on our other work streams such as oral applications of Nuvec® and the development of ECP105 for an orphan indication with Nanogenics.”
