N4 Pharma Plc Share News (N4P)

(Sharecast News) - Specialist pharmaceutical company N4 Pharma said on Friday that it has raised £1.05m before expenses in a placing of 10.5m new ordinary shares to fund its vaccine delivery system.Proceeds from the placing with new investors and existing shareholders will be used to fund process improvement for the Nuvec delivery system for vaccines and cancer therapeutics and move towards good manufacturing practice (GMP) readiness.The proceeds will also be used to fund further biological research to demonstrate Nuvec capability and fund research into additional potential applications for Nuvec.The company explained that in order for Nuvec to be ready to enter clinical studies with any partner molecule, it must be capable of being provided at the required scale and under GMP manufacturing conditions.It said it was "prudent" to develop Nuvec towards this level of readiness to provide comfort to potential collaboration partners. This work will focus on: improving the particle resuspendability; investigating formulation stability with research DNA; transferring the manufacturing process to a GMP capable partner; and ensuring N4 Pharma can make the required quantum at that partner's facility.Subject to achieving this, the technology transfer would be expected to start in the third quarter of this year.Chief executive Nigel Theobald said: "We have made continued progress with Nuvec and believe that it has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes and generate value for investors and partners."I would like to thank investors, new and existing, for their support which will enable us to further develop this exciting opportunity."At 1335 GMT, the shares were down 20.4% to 9.83p.