Last checked at 4 Jul 2017 07:00
04 July 2017
N4 Pharma Plc
("N4 Pharma" or the "Company")
Filing of Patent
N4 Pharma Plc (AIM: N4P), a specialist pharmaceutical company which reformulates existing drugs and vaccines to improve their performance, is pleased to announce the filing of its Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") patent application for the reformulation of Valsartan.
Valsartan is part of a family of drugs known as Angiotensin II antagonists which are commonly used for the treatment of hypertension. N4 Pharma is seeking to reformulate the drug to reduce the impact of an early morning drop in blood pressure. Angiotensin II had global annual sales of approximately $11.2 billion in 2016*.
Nigel Theobald, CEO of N4 Pharma, commented: "Our reformulation work on other drugs continues to progress well and we have now generated the required laboratory data to enable us to file our PCT application for Valsartan. We will continue to work on the reformulation to develop the precise drug profile we would need to take it into 'proof of concept' clinical work.
"Sildenafil remains our lead program and we will provide an update at the appropriate time on our plans and timings for the proof of concept clinical work which we plan to do. As this progresses we will continue to investigate reformulations for the other product opportunities in our pipeline."
*Source: Evaluate Pharma
Enquiries:
N4 Pharma CEO, Nigel Theobald |
Via Alma PR |
Stockdale Securities Tom Griffiths |
Tel: +44(0)207 601 6100 |
Beaufort Securities Elliot Hance |
Tel: +44(0)207 382 8300 |
Alma PR Josh Royston Robyn Fisher |
Tel: +44(0)778 090 1979 Tel: +44(0)754 070 6191 |
About N4 Pharma
N4 Pharma is a specialist pharmaceutical company which reformulates existing drugs and vaccines to improve their performance. Its shares were admitted to trading on AIM on 3 May 2017.
N4 Pharma's reformulation work falls under two divisions:
• generic, already commercialised, drugs; and
• delivery of novel and existing vaccines.
N4 Pharma has identified a number of established drugs that could be improved upon through its reformulation techniques. N4 Pharma's most advanced reformulation is for sildenafil, widely marketed as Viagra, where N4 Pharma is seeking to improve the speed at which the drug takes effect whilst also extending its duration of action.
N4 Pharma's reformulation approach should take approximately three years to obtain regulatory approval as opposed to the traditional process for new drugs of on average ten years. The cost and risk profile of this model is also significantly less than the traditional process. N4 Pharma's business model is to take reformulated drugs from its portfolio through to the stage where it will license its newly reformulated drugs to pharmaceutical companies to commercialise them. N4 Pharma's revenues should be derived from up front milestone and royalty payments associated with the licence.