Starpharma awarded landmark contract for VivaGel development

Melbourne drug developer Starpharma (ASX:SPL) has been awarded a US$20.3 million (AUD$26.4 million) contract from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), for the development of its HIV preventative product VivaGel.

"The money is extremely important, but equally important is the recognition that VivaGel is a significant opportunity for HIV prevention," said Starpharma CEO John Raff. "We own the product, have full commercial rights and there are no royalties. You can't get better than that."

VivaGel is a dendrimer-based vaginal anti-microbial which has just completed phase I trials as a preventative for HIV infection.

According to Starpharma the funding is significant because it accelerates the progress of VivaGel to market and means that VivaGel now has fully external, non-shareholder funding through to the start of large-scale efficacy trials.

The funding was awarded by the NIH after an independent external review of the proposal to advance VivaGel through the clinical pipeline by an international panel of experts in this field.

"It took over a year with an enormous amount of work from Starpharma vice president of drug development Tom McCarthy and the Starpharma team."

The funding from the NIH is provided under a contract with Starpharma and development activities will be conducted under a collaborative research agreement with a team of internationally recognised leaders in the development of new HIV treatment and prevention measures including the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, The National Centre of HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research at the University of New South Wales and the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre in Thailand.

VivaGel for genital herpes

Starpharma has shown that VivaGel is also effective against a range of STDs, including chlamydia, genital herpes, hepatitis B and human papilloma virus.

"VivaGel is also very active in preventing genital herpes, which effects 26 per cent of females in the US above the age of 12 and 16 per cent in Australia. Once again it is similar to the HIV story with clinical trials for genital herpes vaccines having been unsuccessful. Microbicides have been identified as the major opportunity for controlling the epidemic. There is a direct relationship between HIV and genital herpes with those effected with genital herpes seven times more likely to catch HIV," said Raff.