Vectura and Unilever Ventures announce the spin out of Pharmakodex, a new speciality pharmaceutical company
15 May 2006
Vectura and Unilever ventures announce the spin out of PharmaKodex, a new speciality pharmaceutical company
Chippenham/London – May 15 2006: Vectura Group plc (LSE: VEC) ("Vectura") and Unilever Ventures Ltd today announced that they have jointly established a new speciality pharmaceutical company, PharmaKodex Ltd ("PharmaKodex"), to develop a pipeline of pharmaceutical prescription (Rx) and consumer health (OTC) products utilising a range of proprietary oral and transdermal and enabling technologies from Vectura and Unilever.
With its concentration on pulmonary technologies, Vectura transferred its oral and dermal technologies to a 100% owned Vectura subsidiary, PharmaKodex Ltd, in 2005
In addition, the Unilever Group companies have licensed to PharmaKodex two enabling technologies for use in pharmaceutical products. PharmaKodex Ltd will benefit from Unilever's technical and industrial know how.
PharmaKodex is developing a pipeline of improved medicinal products, focusing on re-purposing existing drugs for new indications or combinations, or to provide an improved route of administration. The PharmaKodex development pipeline currently comprises 7 prescription products and 6 OTC products.
PharmaKodex has initiated operations with a strong management team. Chief Executive Officer, Mr Rod Richards, held senior management roles in business and commercial development at Glaxo and SmithKline Beecham, and most recently was CEO at Microscience PLC where he led the business from start up to a successful trade sale in 2005. Prof. John Staniforth, currently Chief Scientific Officer at Vectura, will move to PharmaKodex whilst maintaining a scientific advisory role at Vectura.
Technologies assigned to PharmaKodex by Vectura include a novel 'solid syrup' technology capable of rapid dissolution as well as controlled drug delivery and a 'patchless' unit dose transdermal delivery system capable of delivering high drug payloads with controllable skin fluxes. Unilever has licensed a particle formulation / solubilisation nanotechnology from Iota NanoSolutions Limited, a Unilever Ventures spin-out and a novel encapsulation technology from Unilever plc to PharmaKodex. Both the Unilever technologies were developed by its Corporate Research Group.
Vectura and Unilever Ventures will each retain a significant shareholding in PharmaKodex. Further equity financing will come from specialist venture capital investors.
Dr Chris Blackwell, Chief Executive of Vectura, said: "Vectura has always believed there to be value in its oral and dermal technologies. While our focus is now on the development of our own inhaled drugs for local and systemic use, we believe that the spin-out of these technologies to PharmaKodex is the ideal way to retain a share in that value. We look forward to the strong growth of PharmaKodex and our good wishes go to the management."
Andrew Lane of Unilever Ventures said: "Unilever makes a significant investment in developing formulation and delivery technologies which have broad utility across its range of consumer brands. We identified the potential for some of these technologies to provide unique benefits when applied in pharmaceutical applications. By aligning our technologies with the assets, drug delivery capabilities and expertise of Vectura and the first rate management team at PharmaKodex, we have created what I believe will be a strong new investee company."
Enquiries
Vectura Group plc +44 (0) 1249 667 700
Chris Blackwell, Chief Executive
Anne Hyland, Chief Financial Officer
Unilever Ventures Ltd +44 (0) 20 7321 6199
Andrew Lane, Director
PharmaKodex Ltd +44 (0) 1249 667 667
Rod Richards, Chief Executive
Financial Dynamics +44 (0) 207 831 3113
David Yates/Sarah MacLeod/John Gilbert
Notes for Editors
About Vectura
Vectura's principal focus is the development of a range of inhaled drugs for the treatment of both lung diseases and other conditions where optimised delivery via the lungs can provide significant benefits, such as a rapid onset of action, improved efficacy and improved tolerability compared with current therapies.
Vectura's strategy is to combine its proprietary, innovative, pulmonary formulation and device technologies (PowderHale®, Aspirair® and GyroHaler®) with existing, off-patent drugs either for use in new indications or to provide inhalation as an improved route of administration. The Company seeks to license its lead products to pharmaceutical companies with established sales and marketing infrastructures for the later stages of development and for commercialisation, typically prior to Phase III clinical development. The Company has development collaborations with a number of companies, including Boehringer Ingelheim Novartis, GSK, Chiesi and an unnamed leading international pharmaceutical company. For further information, please visit Vectura's website at www.vectura.com
About Unilever Ventures
Unilever Ventures is the London-based venture capital arm of the Unilever Group. It provides venture capital funding and management skills to start-up and early stage companies. The company is 4 years into investing its first fund of €66m and has 13 investee companies. Technology spin-outs from the Unilever Group comprise a significant part of its portfolio, leveraging Unilever's scientific expertise into different industries. Unilever Ventures also focuses on consumer-facing businesses in Europe where it can draw upon the Unilever Group's expertise in Food and Home & Personal Care products and services.
For further information, please visit www.unileverventures.com.
About PharmaKodex
PharmaKodex Ltd is a speciality pharmaceuticals company exploiting proprietary drug delivery technologies to develop improved medicinal products (IMPs). IMPs provide a well accepted reduced risk business model from which PharmaKodex will create value in both the Pharmaceutical and Consumer Healthcare/OTC sectors.
PharmaKodex will commercialise its products and technologies in an overlapping two-stage process. Initially the company will bring forward a small number of OTC products. PharmaKodex aims to develop these proprietary OTC developments for rapid product introductions as extensions to branded goods franchises, in collaboration with global partners. In parallel PharmaKodex will develop its Rx pipeline to Phase II before partnering.
For further information, please visit PharmaKodex's website at www.pharmakodex.com