Melbourne, Australia; Starpharma Holdings Ltd (ASX: SPL, OTCQX: SPHRY) today announced that a program utilising its proprietary dendrimer-based nanoparticles which have already shown impressive activity in lung cancer models, have been awarded Cancer Australia funding through its collaboration with Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS).

The Cancer Australia grant was awarded to Dr Lisa Kaminskas and Prof Chris Porter at MIPS under its Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme to develop dendrimer drug delivery systems for the treatment of lung cancer.  This grant was part of a total of $4.7 million funding announced by the Federal Health Minister earlier this week*.  

The Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme is a competitive national research grant funding scheme which brings together government and other funders of cancer research to collaboratively fund cancer research in Australia.

MIPS was also this week acknowledged as one of Australia's leading nanotechnology research groups being appointed Leader of a new ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology . The Centre received $26 million funding which will be used to expand MIPS’ work, and the work of their collaborators in the Centre, in amongst other things, nano-based drug delivery projects.  Starpharma has collaborated with MIPS for a number of years on its drug delivery programs, and this was highlighted as a good example of an academic-commercial partnership successfully translating new technologies to market.

Prof Chris Porter, from MIPS said: “The Cancer Australia funding will allow us to develop further our work on drug delivery treatments in lung cancer that we’ve conducted in partnership with Starpharma.  More broadly, it’s an exciting time for MIPS and our research partners with the recent announcement of the Centre of Excellence, which will allow us to accelerate and expand our research projects.”

“’Starpharma is a global leader in nanotechnology drug delivery and our relationship with Starpharma  is a wonderful example of how researchers can work with companies to  advance very promising pharmaceutical products from the lab to the clinic.”

Starpharma Chief Executive Officer Dr Jackie Fairley said: “The prospect of providing lung cancer patients a treatment that improves efficacy and yields lower side effects is highly attractive and we look forward to seeing how this exciting project progresses. We are delighted that a program based on our dendrimer delivery technology has attracted this prestigious cancer funding.”

Starpharma’s dendrimer-based drug delivery technology has been utilised to reformulate already approved cancer drugs such as docetaxel (Taxotere®), oxaliplatin (Eloxatin®) and doxorubicin. Preclinical studies have shown these reformulated drugs to be superior to the commercially available formulation, often in multiple ways including improved efficacy, reduced toxicity and lower side effects.  Starpharma is advancing its Dendrimer-Docetaxel into a Phase 1 clinical trial in the New Year.

*Cancer Australia does not publicly disclose the amount of funding provided for individual grants.

Download ASX Announcement: Cancer Australia funding for dendrimer-based lung treatment ( pdf file, 453kb)