N4 Pharma Plc (LON:N4P), the specialist pharmaceutical company developing Nuvec®, a novel delivery system for vaccines and cancer treatments, has announced its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30th June 2020.
Highlights:
· Refined strategy to focus on three, clearly defined, work streams:
o the optimisation of production and loading of Nuvec® as a delivery technology platform for nucleic acid vaccines;
o the Covid-19 proof of concept research programme; and
o feasibility studies into Nuvec® for use in oral vaccines and other applications.
· Successful transfection in vitro of HEK 293T cells with Nuvec® loaded with the Coronavirus DNA Plasmid
· Move to full in vivo study with the Coronavirus and other DNA plasmids with measurement of production of antibodies
· Research Collaboration Agreement with Nanomerics Limited out of UCL’s School of Pharmacy
· Appointment of Ardena as technology transfer and manufacturing partner
· Operating loss for the period was £585,066 (30 June 2019: £552,160)
· Placing of 50,731,250 new Ordinary Shares to raise c.£2 million
· Issue of a further 3,886,562 new Ordinary Shares following warrant and option exercises raising £139,262.48
· Cash balance at period end of approximately £2.44 million
Nigel Theobald, Chief Executive Officer of N4 Pharma, commented:
“The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic during the period has thrown up considerable challenges globally but also opportunities. Whilst continuing with our optimisation work of Nuvec® as a delivery platform technology, the immediate need to address the threat of Covid-19 encouraged us to look at more specific, product driven, applications resulting in our proof of concept work with Nuvec® loaded with the Coronavirus DNA Plasmid. Our subsequent in vitro success was extremely pleasing but to maximise our chances of success in any full in vivo study we now need to incorporate the findings of our optimisation work. This is key as we look to further our work with the Coronavirus plasmid in parallel to working with more generic DNA plasmids which may be more applicable in collaborations on multiple other vaccines. To that end, we are excited to be moving towards our most comprehensive in vivo study to date and are in the process of scoping the different aspects of the study.
“At the same time, we aim to maximise the potential uses of Nuvec® as we continue to look at other applications including assessing its ability for use in the delivery of vaccines orally. We remain fully funded for the current work programmes and I look forward to providing further updates in due course.”
