Melbourne, Australia: Starpharma (ASX: SPL, OTCQX: SPHRY) today announced it has received A$2.6 million from AstraZeneca following the achievement of the final preclinical milestone for its first DEP^® candidate, a highly novel oncology molecule from AstraZeneca’s portfolio.

As announced on 20 April 2017, the payment relates to reaching an important development milestone prior to the first AstraZeneca DEP^® candidate advancing to clinical trials. It follows the completion of extensive testing and scale up activities by AstraZeneca.

This milestone payment falls under the multiproduct DEP^® licence Starpharma has signed with AstraZeneca, whereby Starpharma is eligible to receive potential development, launch and sales milestones of US$124 million for this initial AstraZeneca DEP^® product, and US$93.3 million for each subsequent qualifying product. Under the licence Starpharma will also receive tiered royalties on net sales on the resultant AstraZeneca DEP^® products, and AstraZeneca funds development costs of the DEP^® AstraZeneca products.

AstraZeneca recently described this DEP^® candidate as a “very exciting novel oncology agent” and its relationship with Starpharma as a “highly productive collaboration”. In addition to this DEP^® candidate, AstraZeneca continues to investigate the potential of the platform more broadly across molecules within their oncology portfolio.

The initial announcement made on 20 April 2017 can be downloaded here: AstraZeneca DEP® candidate advance triggers milestone to Starpharma (pdf file, 91kb)

Download ASX Announcement: Starpharma receives DEP® milestone from AstraZeneca ( pdf file, 172kb)