Starpharma losses down, revenues up

Starpharma's (ASX:SPL) 2002-03 revenues jumped 11 per cent to AUD$1.5 million and its operating loss fell to $7.7 million, the company has announced.

The company also closed the financial year with cash reserves of $7.8 million. With a $6.9 million placement to institutional investors earlier this week under its belt, the company is now in a healthy position to advance its development programs over the next three years, according to CEO Dr John Raff.

During the 2002-2003 financial year, Starpharma converted its Dendritic Nanotechnologies (DNT) venture into a separate US entity, retaining 49.99 per cent equity interest in the company.

DNT has already been recognised as a substantial participant in US nanotechnology development and has received significant grants from the US army and other sources, Raff said.

"It's a real asset to Starpharma," said Raff. "It's got a good range of incomes coming into the company, and Starpharma will get the commercialisation rights for pharmaceutical applications."

He said DNT was likely to be involved in significant licensing arrangements very quickly, particularly as many of the non-pharmaceutical applications had a short path to market. And the company is already selling dendrimer research products through Sigma-Aldrich.

Raff said DNT's value would not be fully defined for another couple of years, but was likely to be worth $100 million. As an IP generator, it would build its own momentum and spin off companies itself.

Starpharma also made significant progress on its own projects, including the VivaGel dendrimer-based microcidal gel, which was recently cleared by the FDA to commence Phase I clinical trials for prevention of HIV infection. Other applications still in pre-clinical development for other sexually transmitted diseases include chlamydia.

Raff said it was likely that Starpharma would enter into both licensing deals and collaborative arrangements with other companies this year.

"By the end of this year, we hope to have two or three relationships with international and Australian companies," he said.

No policy without industry

Raff said it was important to have support at an industry level for companies to form relationships with each other and with research institutions.

"I've been lobbying for [state and federal] governments to stop the process of industry development initiatives without company involvement," he said. For example, he said last year's Victorian state government funding to the Nanotechnology Victoria consortium of Monash University, RMIT, Swinburne University and the CSIRO involved no companies.

"We need to change the culture where institutions don't see a role in supporting industry," Raff said. To that end, he said, state and federal governments should actively promote research collaborations with industry, with project management under the control of the industry participants.

Starpharma itself has a range of active collaborations with research institutions, including one with the Victorian College of Pharmacy's Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation, and others with RMIT, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute and the University of Sydney, as well as a number of collaborations with groups in the US and Europe.

"We used to have a collaboration with CSIRO, but it got too hard to continue the relationship," Raff said.