ValiRx enters evaluation and option deal with Canada's Altus

(Sharecast News) - ValiRx announced on Wednesday that it has entered into an evaluation and option agreement with Canada-based Altus Formulation to assess the potential of Altus' SmartCelle drug delivery technology and novel anti-inflammatory compounds for cancer treatment. The AIM-traded firm said the agreement, running for an initial 12 months, would focus on enhancing the solubility, potency, and targeting of selected drug candidates, including ValiRx's CLX001 cytolytic peptide and Altus' CB2 agonist TA-A001.

It said the evaluation would be conducted by ValiRx's subsidiary, Inaphaea BioLabs, using patient-derived cells, with promising candidates progressing to in vivo testing through collaborative partners to assess safety, biodistribution, and efficacy.

As part of the agreement, ValiRx said it had secured an option to license the technologies for certain cancer treatments.

The option would need to be exercised within three months of identifying a clinical development candidate.

If exercised, the parties would have a further three months to negotiate a separate licensing agreement, after which the option would expire unless mutually extended.

"In a first for ValiRx, we are signing an evaluation agreement with a proprietary formulation technology provider to develop novel drug-delivery combinations for both our own assets as well as accessing preformulated assets from Altus," said chief executive officer Mark Eccleston.

"This builds on my personal technical background in drug delivery and opens up a range of possibilities to accelerate our development and evaluation programmes."

At 0958 GMT, shares in ValiRx were up 2.88% at 0.82p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.