N4 Pharma extends 'Nuvec' licence agreement with Aussie university firm

(Sharecast News) - Specialist pharmaceutical company N4 Pharma has extended the terms of its licence agreement with UniQuest - a University of Queensland company - for the exploitation of its novel delivery system 'Nuvec' on Thursday.The AIM-traded firm said that previously it had a licence to pursue the use of nucleic acids in all human therapeutic treatments, with an option to extend its licence to additional fields such as animal vaccines, peptides and small molecules.Under the extended terms of the licence agreement, the company said it now has an exclusive global licence for the commercialisation of Nuvec in all of those areas, as well as other possible commercial applications, such as dual-therapy cancer treatments.The firm had subsequently licensed back to UNIQUEST certain defined fields which it did not consider relevant to its targeted applications, but in which UNIQUEST was intending to carry out research.It said the provisions regarding the payment of royalties by the company to UNIQUEST remained unchanged from the original licence agreement."With the extension of this licence agreement with UNIQUEST we are now able to further enter into the ever growing field of cancer treatment development by researching this new dual therapy approach to the treatment of cancerous tumours through combining small molecules with DNA and RNA to our Nuvec particles," said chief executive officer Nigel Theobald."We can also investigate the unique structure of Nuvec® for the improved delivery of traditional small molecules, an area where existing nanoparticles are already widely used."The extension of the Licence Agreement allows for many new potential applications to be developed and we will be updating the market on our plans in these areas in due course."