22 December 2017
N4 Pharma Plc
("N4 Pharma" or the "Company")
Filing of Patent
N4 Pharma Plc (AIM: N4P), a specialist pharmaceutical company which reformulates existing drugs and vaccines to improve their performance, is pleased to announce the filing of its Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") patent application for the oral reformulation of Aprepitant (marketed by Merck & Co under the brand name Emend).
Aprepitant is an anti-emetic drug used to suppress nausea resulting from surgery and chemotherapy with global sales of over $500m last year and whose patent for the oral products expired in 2015.
Nigel Theobald, CEO of N4 Pharma, commented: "This filing marks the next important step in the patent process for our Aprepitant application.
Sildenafil remains our lead project for generics and in line with our stated strategy, we will continue to progress our intellectual property for other possible generic reformulation opportunities that we can then develop at a later stage."
Enquiries:
N4 Pharma CEO, Nigel Theobald |
Via Alma PR |
Stockdale Securities Tom Griffiths |
Tel: +44(0)207 601 6100 |
Beaufort Securities Elliot Hance |
Tel: +44(0)207 382 8300 |
Alma PR Josh Royston Robyn Fisher |
Tel: +44(0)778 090 1979 Tel: +44(0)754 070 6191 |
About N4 Pharma
N4 Pharma is a specialist pharmaceutical company which reformulates existing drugs and vaccines to improve their performance.
N4 Pharma's reformulation work falls under two divisions:
• generic, already commercialised, drugs; and
• delivery of novel and existing vaccines.
N4 Pharma has identified a number of established drugs that could be improved upon through its reformulation techniques. N4 Pharma's most advanced reformulation is for sildenafil, widely marketed as Viagra, where N4 Pharma is seeking to improve the speed at which the drug takes effect whilst also extending its duration of action.
N4 Pharma's reformulation approach should take approximately three years to obtain regulatory approval as opposed to the traditional process for new drugs of on average ten years. The cost and risk profile of this model is also significantly less than the traditional process. N4 Pharma's business model for generics is to take reformulated drugs from its portfolio through to the stage where it will license its newly reformulated drugs to pharmaceutical companies to commercialise them. N4 Pharma's revenues should be derived from up front milestone and royalty payments associated with the licence.
N4 Pharma's business model for vaccines is to undertake the required clinical work to demonstrate the capability of its delivery system as a cancer vaccine or therapeutic treatment so that it can license the technology to major players developing treatments in this area, again in return for up front milestone and royalty payments associated with the licence.
