Immunology
Drug development company Redx Pharma has confirmed the launch of a research and development centre focused on disorders of the immune system.
Redx Immunology will sit alongside Redx Oncology and Redx Anti-Infectives, which tackle cancer and infectious diseases respectively. The new subsidiary will operate alongside the latter from laboratories at Alderley Park, Cheshire.
It has been launched with £4.2 million of grant funding support from the UK Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF). Redx, which successfully listed on AIM in March this year, is match funding the rest of the capital required to establish the new business.
The project plan aims to deliver up to eight new drug development candidates for subsequent progression into clinical trials.
Dr. Neil Murray, chief executive of Redx Pharma, commented: “Diseases involving the immune system represent some of the most defining public health challenges of the developed world. Our new R&D centre for immunology will build on the expertise that we are bringing to bear in the key area of tumour immunology. We are looking to switch on the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells. It is a logical next step for the business to grow into creating therapeutics that seek to turn off the immune system and tackle conditions such as inflammation and auto-immune diseases.
“We feel the Redx approach and methodology will make a significant contribution to the R&D pipeline in this area and speed up the process of helping large pharma create new therapies and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes.”
This latest RGF offer is a further endorsement of Redx’s position in development of the new model of pharmaceutical R&D. As large pharma companies reduce their internal research capacity, there is a need for smaller, agile companies to provide new drug programs to fill the pipeline gap that has arisen.
“The Regional Growth Fund has made a very real contribution to the growth of our business, and its endorsement of our plans has helped us attract substantial private sector investment,” added Murray. “This latest award gives us another key base from which we can grow our overall business.”
Redx’s approach is to focus on improving the characteristics of existing drug classes to create highly differentiated best-in-class new drugs. Over a short period, Redx has already established a portfolio of 13 proprietary, (patent-protected) drug programmes. Five programmes have achieved pre-clinical proof of concept, with relevance for respective therapies to treat MRSA, solid tumours and blood cancers
As part of its business model, Redx seeks partnering and licensing deals at an early stage in its drug development programmes with large and emerging mid-size pharmaceutical companies. These partnerships have the potential to deliver development and sales milestone income to Redx as well as royalties on future sales.