IP Group company signs $40 million deal with Schering

Collaboration agreement

Pharminox Ltd, a private oncology R&D company backed by IP Group, has signed an agreement with Schering-Plough Corporation to carry out joint research into novel small molecule chemotherapeutics.

Schering will provide R&D funding for up to two years for Pharminox to synthesise compounds, which will then be screened at Schering’s laboratories in Kenilworth, New
Jersey, US. The pharma company will have an option to license intellectual property arising from the programme, including potential clinical development candidates.

Pharminox was spun out of Oxford University’s Chemistry Department in 2000 with the backing of the quoted technology commercialisation company IP Group plc. The platinum compounds around which it was formed failed to progress because of toxicity issues, but Pharminox built up a relationship with Malcolm Stevens, Director of the Cancer Research UK Experimental Cancer Chemotherapy Group at Nottingham University, in-licensing compounds he had discovered and subsequently employing him as chief scientific officer in September 2004.

When Stevens’ funding from Cancer Research UK came to an end in September this year his research group transferred to become employees of Pharminox.

While working for Cancer Research UK, Stevens was responsible for the discovery and early development of temozolomide, a treatment for malignant glioma (brain tumour), which is marketed by Schering-Plough. The brief now is to come up with related compounds that have a superior effect.

Peter Worrall, Chief Executive of Pharminox said, “As our first deal with a major pharmaceutical company [this] represents an important validation of Pharminox’s credentials in the field of cancer research.”