Last checked at 4 Mar 2016 13:05
Onzima Ventures PLC
("Onzima" or the "Company")
Investee Company N4 Pharma announces rare diseases vaccine program
Change of registered address and company's website address
Onzima is pleased to announce that N4 Pharma Limited ("N4 Pharma") its 49%-owned investee company, has acquired the exclusive global rights to commercialise the nano particle vaccine delivery system from the University of Queensland ("Uniquest") under its Nuvac® brand for a wide range of rare diseases.
Under this agreement N4 Pharma will seek to develop its Nuvac® platform to provide improved sub unit vaccines for the likes of the Zika virus, Chikungunya, Crimean-Cpongo, Haemorrhagic Fever, Dengue Virus, Ebola, Hantavirus, Lassa fever, Marburg, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Nipah, Plague, Q Fever and Rift Valley Fever.
These rare diseases are becoming an increasing focus of national governments and health organisations who are providing significant resources to companies who have the technology to help fight these diseases.
N4 Pharma CEO Nigel Theobald commented:
"This arrangement greatly enhances our relationship with Uniquest, whom we are already working with for our DNA and hepatitis B vaccine programs. The nano particle technology can reduce the dose required to treat these vaccines and remove the need to use Alum as an adjuvant to make the vaccine effective. There are many sub unit vaccines in development to treat these diseases and N4 will be aiming to work with some of these antigens to improve their performance.
The U.K. Government announced just this week a new call to support technology platforms to address this issue. Nuvac® is ideally placed to secure grant funding to improve the efficacy of the vaccine programs to treat these diseases. In addition to the dose and adjuvant benefits, the increased thermal stability we see when using the silica vesicles would be valued in these environments where a cold chain is not always available.
The investment and support of Onzima ventures is now allowing us to accelerate plans we already had in our pipeline. This is just one example of an application of the underlying expertise within our exclusive platform technologies and we intend to continue to build our intellectual property base in the field of drug reformulation."
Onzima is well-funded to consider additional investment opportunities.
Change of Registered office
The Company's registered office has changed to 190 High Street, Tonbridge, Kent TN19 1BE
Company's Rule 26 website
The Company's website is www.onzimaventures.com
For further information please contact:
Onzima Ventures PLC Tel: +44 (0) 1622 717700
Gavin Burnell, Luke Cairns
Nominated Adviser
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP Tel: +44 (0) 20 7148 7900
Sandy Jamieson, Liam Murray
Broker
Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited Tel: +44 (0) 20 7469 0930
Guy Miller, Lucy Williams