(Alliance News) - Midatech Pharma PLC on Thursday said it has data demonstrating that its Q-Sphera technology can formulate monoclonal antibodies into long-acting injectables, a novel development in pharmaceuticals with significant medical and commercial potential.
Midatech Pharma shares were trading up 82% at 50.01 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
The Cardiff, Wales-based research and development company aims to improve injectable medicines with its proprietary Q-Sphera platform. The Q-Sphera platform 3D-prints drug-loaded polymer microspheres, whose contents can be tailored to individual therapies. These spheres can contain a large drug loads that are released evenly over a sustained period, unlike immediate release medicines which cause spikes and troughs in plasma drug levels.
The company said that recent data showed that the Q-Sphera platform successfully encapsulated an exemplar monoclonal antibody. Monoclonal antibodies and other similar proteins with a high molecular weight, are particularly delicate and often denatured during the manufacturing process.
The company said that it "believes no other commercial or academic organisation has been able to successfully deliver therapeutic proteins over extended periods using methods capable of commercial scaling."
The commercial potential for protein based medicines and long-acting injectables is significant. The company said that in 2020 the top ten monoclonal antibodies recorded aggregate sales of USD74.9 billion, while global revenue from all monoclonal antibodies globally hit USD154 billion.
The next phase of development for Midatech Pharma is to replicate the results and improve the drug loading and dissolution profile for monoclonal antibodies.
Midatech Pharma continued to progress its wider product range. The company has successfully developed a long-acting formulation of the antipsychotic drug brexpiprazole, sold as Rexulti, to be delivered over a three month period. In 2020 global sales of long acting antipsychotic products made USD5.7 billion. Midatech Pharma said it has begun discussions with third parties about a potential licencing of the therapy, identified as MTD211.
The researcher recently initiated a phase two study of its novel formulation of the drug panobinostat, which treats brain cancers including diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma and glioblastoma multiforme. Around 1,000 people are diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma each year and median survival is around 10 months.
Midatech Pharma's injectable formula, known as MTX110, will be delivered to 21 recently diagnosed patients over 48 hours in six cycles, spaced two to four weeks apart. The study will test the treatment in 21 newly diagnosed patients to assess tolerability and survival rates.
The owner of panobinostat patents, Secura Bio Inc, terminated Midatech Pharma's formerly granted licences for the drug in June 2020. This month Secura Bio claimed a breach of the terms of the licence and demanded that the company grant it a "non-exclusive, free licence to its intellectual property and know-how". Midatech Pharma said that it believes these claims and demands are without merit.
Midatech Pharma also noted that it is developing and testing several other undefined Q-Sphera treatments with the European affiliate of an undisclosed global healthcare company.
Separately, Midatech Pharma said it ended in-house development of its endochrine disorder treatment MTD201, after a strategic review. It closed its Spanish subsidiary and therefore the MTD201 dedicated manufacturing facilities in Bilbao, Spain. The closure resulted in an immediate halving of the company's cash burn rate and significant savings in research and development and administrative expenses going forward.
In April, Midatech Pharma said revenue for 2020 was down 42% to GBP180,000 from GBP312,000 in 2019. Meanwhile the company's pretax loss widened in 2020 to GBP23.5 million from GBP10.9 million.
By Scarlett Butler; scarlettbutler@alliancenews.com
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