News

Lipoxen Signs Intervet Agreement

24 September 2007

Edited Press Release

LONDON – Lipoxen and Intervet, an animal health company, Monday announced that the companies have entered into an exclusive worldwide development and licence agreement to develop a sustained-release insulin for the veterinary health market.

The signing of this agreement by Intervet triggers an upfront payment to Lipoxen. The agreement also provides for further clinical, regulatory and sales milestone payments to Lipoxen. In addition, Lipoxen will receive royalties on future product sales.

Intervet has signed this agreement in order to access Lipoxen's unique PolyXen (R) drug delivery technology. This technology has been developed to improve the pharmacokinetic profile of protein drugs including extending their therapeutic half life, thereby reducing the frequency of administration. PolyXen(R) is based on linking the therapeutic proteins, or peptides, of interest to the naturally occurring polymer polysialic acid. It improves the stability and the therapeutic half-life of protein drugs and improves their solubility and immunological characteristics, while maintaining biological activity and minimizing toxicity.

Scott Maguire, CEO of Lipoxen, said: "We are delighted that Intervet has decided to enter into this collaboration with Lipoxen to apply PolyXen(R) to develop a sustained release insulin formulation for veterinary use. This is the third exclusive license agreement that we have put in place with large biopharmaceutical companies granting access to our proprietary protein delivery technology and we believe that we are well positioned to leverage our technology further through additional agreements in the pharmaceutical space."

He added "Intervet is the 3rd largest animal health company globally, by sales, and is targeting a veterinary market worth $40 million globally with this product. Importantly this collaboration reinforces our own view that our technology can deliver a sustained-insulin formulation. Lipoxen is currently developing a human sustained-release insulin which is expected to enter clinical development prior to the end of 2007."