ValiRx Regulatory News (VAL)

27th October 2015

ValiRx Plc

("ValiRx" or "the Company")

Collaboration Agreement

"ValiRx partners with Pharmatest Services Ltd ("Pharmatest") in new three year agreement

 to further develop GeneICE's pipeline of products"

"Pharmatest cancer models to be used to test efficacy in GeneICE products"

ValiRx Plc (AIM: VAL), a life science company with a focus on cancer diagnostics and therapeutics for personalised medicine, announces that it has signed a three-year collaboration agreement with Pharmatest of Turku, Finland for the development of further products and compounds from ValiRx's proprietary platform technology, Gene inactivation by chromatin engineering ("GeneICE"). [The agreement will commence with immediate effect].

ValiRx's GeneICE technology enables the selective silencing of 'rebellious' or inappropriately active genes, which can contribute to many diseases, including cancer. GeneICE is able to prevent activity from the rebellious gene even though it is still present. In preliminary studies GeneICE products have been shown to be effective in prostate, ovarian, pancreatic, lung and other cancer cell lines.

Pharmatest Services Ltd is a contract research organisation that offers pre-clinical efficacy and other testing services for the pharmaceutical industry in the fields of oncology and skeletal diseases. 

Under the agreement, Pharmatest is responsible for designing GeneICE constructs in both isolation and in collaboration with ValiRx. The GeneICE constructs are then used for subsequent efficacy testing, using novel and more traditional techniques, in various cancer model systems developed by Pharmatest and its collaborators. Much of the future planned work results from the conclusions and methods developed during the successful Eurostars program in which both ValiRx and Pharmatest were partners.

No additional payment will be made by ValiRx to Pharmatest for providing the services under this agreement with the exception of a small proportion of any upfront and milestone payments, or other licensing income that ValiRx may receive on products developed under this agreement and during the life of the intellectual property right patent.

Dr Satu Vainikka, CEO of ValiRx, commented: "ValiRx is happy to enter into this 3-year agreement with Pharmatest. The work that Pharmatest has done for ValiRx in our other programmes during the past years has been of very high quality and we are convinced that this agreement will substantially speed up the development of future GeneICE projects."

Jussi Halleen, CEO of Pharmatest commented: "I wish to thank ValiRx for their trust in Pharmatest in this very important project, and we are also delighted to continue our fruitful business relationship in the coming years."

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Notes for Editors

ValiRx Plc

ValiRx Plc is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel technologies and products in oncology therapeutics and diagnostics. The product focus is in the epigenomic analysis and treatment of cancer, but the technologies can be applied to other fields as well, such as neurology and inflammatory diseases.

The Company has undertaken to develop a novel and groundbreaking class of therapeutics across a number of fields in oncology and has taken its lead compound, VAL201, into Phase I/II clinical trials. The Company listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2006.

The Company has a pipeline of other therapeutic drugs, which are currently progressing towards clinical trials. The product focus is in the targeted analysis and treatment of cancer, but the technologies can be applied to other fields as well, such as neurology and inflammatory diseases. Of particular note is GeneICE, ValiRx's technology for controlling rebellious genes, which has been awarded a Eurostars grant to fund the development of GeneICE products through preclinical stages in cancer treatments.

ValiRx actively manages projects within its portfolio as a trading company. The ValiRx business model spreads the risks of life science technology development by minimising financial exposure and running a set of projects to defined commercial endpoints. This maximises returns to shareholders by adding value at the earlier stages where value increases per investment unit are the greatest.

Pharmatest Services Ltd

 Pharmatest is a contract research organization specialised in clinically predictive pre-clinical efficacy services in the therapeutic areas of oncology and skeletal diseases with a concentration on non-clinical drug development.

 The company aims to provide faster and more predictive outcomes to drug development and testing, thereby reducing the number of drug candidates failing in clinical trials.

Pharmatest's headquarters and pre-clinical research unit are located in Turku, Finland, with modern facilities including fully equipped research laboratories and barrier-type animal facilities. The company also has sales offices located in Cambridge, MA, USA and Guangzhou, China.

Background to GeneICE & Eurostar

In June 2009, ValiRx, as the leading partner of an international consortium of three companies, was awarded a two year grant by Eurostar against substantial competition from across Europe, to develop its GeneICE technology ("GeneICE" or "Gene inactivation by chromatin engineering"), in which "rebellious genes", which cause problems such as cancer and potentially some neurological problems, are shut down or "put on ice".

The Eurostar programme is a EU grant scheme and EUrEKa Network initiative, created with the purpose of providing funding for market-oriented research and development activities by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises within the EU.

ValiRx successfully led the funding application with GenoSyst (Finland) and PentaBase (Denmark) under the 2nd call to the Eurostar joint Programme, for design optimisation, lead selection and pre-clinical testing of GeneICE. The application was rated second in the UK and Finland and first in Denmark, coming in 4th overall out of over 500 applicants within the EU wide scheme. More recently a Second Eurostar programme in conjunction with Pharmatest Services has been undertaken.

The technology is under license from Imperial College, University of London and it has been shown to be effective against several cancer cell lines, including prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer and lung cancer.

ValiRx retains all commercial rights for GeneICE from the programme.