For release at 07:00 on 23 January 2013
VALIRX PLC
("ValiRx" or the "Company" or the "Group")
Appointment of Medical Monitoring Officer and VAL201 update
ValiRx Plc (AIM: VAL), a life science company in clinical development with anti-cancer diagnostics and therapeutics for personalised medicine, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Alan Boyd as Medical Monitoring Officer for the clinical development of VAL201. Among his responsibilities, Dr Boyd will oversee the medical aspects of the clinical trials and development of VAL201, including input into the final protocol and interaction with the regulatory agencies, medical oversight on patient recruitment and follow up activity from the Company's perspective.
Dr Boyd is an acknowledged pharmaceutical physician with over 30 years of expertise in clinical drug development. He has worked for GlaxoSmithKline plc, Zeneca Group PLC and Ark Therapeutics Group plc and currently holds non-executive directorships in several biotechnology companies. He is also currently a Chairman of the Specialist Advisory Committee in Pharmaceutical medicine at the Royal College of Physicians, UK.
As previously announced, the Company is also pleased to have earlier appointed Professor Hilary Calvert as clinical advisor for the development of VAL201. He is a leading figure in anti-cancer development internationally and has received several life-time awards for his anti-cancer drug development work. He was appointed Director of Cancer Drug Discovery and Development at the UCL Cancer Institute and in the past month, Professor Calvert has also taken over (Dec 2012) as Chair of the New Agents Committee at Cancer Research UK.
Scale-up activity and the manufacture of sufficient amounts of clinical grade compound for the initial VAL201 clinical trials has been completed. The protocols that have been developed for the trials are being refined and agreed. Furthermore, the Company has completed its identification and targeting of potential patient populations.
VAL201 has shown efficacy in prostate, breast and ovarian cancer models as well as addressing endometriosis and is progressing through its clinical development, as expected.
Dr Satu Vainikka, CEO, commented:"2013 will be a very exciting year for ValiRx as we are progressing our clinical development and expanding our cancer therapeutic portfolio. I am delighted to be working with internationally recognised experts in Oncology and we at ValiRx are already feeling the benefit of their collaboration, counsel and support. The next stage of ValiRx's development and growth will see a very exciting step change."
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For more information, please contact:
ValiRx plc |
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3008 4416 |
Dr Satu Vainikka |
www.ValiRx.com |
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Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (Nominated Adviser) |
Tel:+44 (0) 20 7148 7900 |
Liam Murray / Avi Robinson |
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Hybridan LLP (Broker) |
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7947 4350 |
Claire Noyce / Deepak Reddy |
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Peckwater PR |
Tel: +44 (0)7879 458 364 |
Tarquin Edwards |
[email protected] |
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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 listed on AIM in October 2006 and is creating a portfolio of innovative products through investment in specific development projects. It actively manages projects within this portfolio as a trading company and is not an investment vehicle. The ValiRx business model spreads the risks of life science technology developments 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.
The Company operates through the following divisional companies:
ValiFinn is the biomarkers and diagnostic development division
ValiPharma is the therapeutics division with two embedded technologies primarily directed at the
treatment of cancers.
