Melbourne, Australia: Starpharma (ASX: SPL; OCTQX: SPHRY) today announced that its Share Purchase Plan (SPP) which closed on Wednesday 7 December 2011, is oversubscribed by more than 400%.  The SPP was capped at $3 million, and shareholders have subscribed a total in excess of $12 million.

The SPP follows a placement in November to international and domestic institutional, sophisticated and professional investors which raised A$32 million.  The SPP and placement were conducted at the last closing price prior to Trading Halt on 14 November (A$1.075 per share).  There was strong participation in the placement from existing investors and it was led by the large UK based global fund M&G, which acquired a 6.7% stake in the Company,

As a result of the strong demand and oversubscription of the SPP, applications will need to be scaled back, and refunds will be issued following allotment of the new shares.

Starpharma Chief Executive Officer Dr Jackie Fairley said: “We are delighted to see such strong demand shown in the recent financing and we thank our shareholders for their tremendous support.  These funds will allow us to significantly accelerate multiple products based on our dendrimer technology platform and position the company very strongly for the future.”

The total funding of A$35m will be largely directed towards advancing the following applications for Starpharma’s technology: 

• Bacterial Vaginosis: The development of VivaGel^® for BV is now funded through to registration for two applications and will capture a share of markets estimated to be worth in excess of A$1.3 billion for the prevention and recurrence indications.  Starpharma expects to commence pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials early next year.

• Drug Delivery: Starpharma’s internal drug delivery program includes improvement of Docetaxel, a powerful and widely used chemotherapeutic drug with sales of A$3 billion in 2010.  This funding will allow Starpharma to advance development of a dendrimer reformulation of the drug, potentially improving the side effect profile and patient outcomes, to a stage where it can command significant commercial value via a partnership.  Investigatory and preclinical work with other drugs also continues.

• Agrochemicals: Starpharma’s lead candidate in its internal agrochemical program is an enhanced reformulation of the A$5 billion herbicide Glyphosate (RoundUp^®).  New funding will be directed towards accelerating an improved Glyphosate formulation program as well as advancing a solvent reduced/free agrochemical formulation and a number of other selected agrochemical agents.

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