Starpharma Holdings Limited (ASX:SPL, OTCQX:SPHRY) today announced it has appointed Malcolm McColl to join the company's existing business development team as a Vice President to meet the growing market demand for pharmaceutical and life science applications of Starpharma's dendrimer technology, particularly in drug delivery.
Malcolm is a seasoned business development professional with more than 20 years' experience with major biotechnology companies, including 13 years with CSL where he negotiated major agreements with Pfizer and Bayer, amongst many others. Malcolm joins Starpharma in August in the role of VP Business Development and will be supporting and enhancing Starpharma's already successful partnering activities and programs.
Malcolm returns to Australia from the UK where as Hospira's Business Development Director, Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA), he was responsible for growing the global and EMEA business through an ambitious plan of targeted acquisitions and licensing activities. There he led negotiations and due diligence for a significant number of license agreements and transactions including Hospira's recent ~A$135M deal with Chemgenex for rights to Omacetaxine, a proprietary oncology product.
Dr Jackie Fairley, Chief Executive Officer of Starpharma, welcomed Malcolm to the executive team: “We are delighted to have Malcolm join Starpharma at this exciting stage of the company's development. His contribution will further enhance our already highly successful partnering activities in drug delivery, VivaGel®, in vitro diagnostics (IVD) and agrochemicals. Malcolm's international industry networks and experience will be a great asset in securing further commercial agreements and with this additional business development resource, Starpharma will significantly boost its commercial development capabilities.”
Starpharma has established a successful business model of partnering with market-leading companies to maximise the value of its dendrimer platform in a range of industries and applications. The company has a growing list of major companies that are actively exploring the use of Starpharma's proprietary dendrimer technology to enhance the performance their pharmaceutical products, including Lilly, GSK, and in animal health, Elanco.
The company also has established commercial relationships with leading companies, such as SSL International plc, Siemens Healthcare, and EMD Merck KgA for other applications of its proprietary dendrimer technology.
Starpharma Holdings Limited (ASX:SPL, OTCQX:SPHRY) is a world leader in the development of dendrimer nanotechnology for pharmaceutical, life-science and other applications. SPL is principally composed of two operating companies, Starpharma Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Australia and Dendritic Nanotechnologies, Inc in Michigan, USA. Products based on SPL's dendrimer technology are already on the market in the form of diagnostic elements and laboratory reagents.
The Company's lead pharmaceutical development product is VivaGel® (SPL7013 Gel), a vaginal microbicide designed to prevent the transmission of STIs, including HIV and genital herpes.
In the wider pharmaceutical field Starpharma has specific programs in the areas of Drug Delivery and Drug Optimisation technologies (using dendrimers to control where and when drugs go when introduced to the body) and Targeted Diagnostics (using dendrimers as a scaffold to which both location-signalling and targeting groups are added to allow location of specific cell type, such as cancer cells). More broadly the company is exploring dendrimer opportunities in materials science with applications as diverse as adhesives, lubricants and water remediation.
SPL has a comprehensive IP portfolio that comprises more than 224 patents/applications issued and pending across 56 patent families - a unique level of IP concentration among nanotechnology companies.
Dendrimers: A type of precisely-defined, branched nanoparticle. Dendrimers have applications in the medical, electronics, chemicals and materials industries.
American Depositary Receipts (ADRs): Starpharma's ADRs trade under the code SPHRY (CUSIP number 855563102). Each Starpharma ADR is equivalent to 10 ordinary shares of Starpharma as traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The Bank of New York Mellon is the depositary bank. Starpharma's ADRs are listed on International OTCQX (otcqx.com), a premium market tier in the U.S. for international exchange-listed companies, operated by Pink OTC Markets, Inc.