Redx Pharma launches £24m immunology R&D centre
Receives £4.2m of funding from the UK Government's Regional Growth Fund to be matched with proceeds from AIM listing
Drug development company Redx Pharma has launched its third subsidiary, Redx Immunology, which will focus on developing new therapies for disorders of the immune system.
Redx Immunology will sit along Redx Oncology and Redx Anti-Infectives, which tackle cancer and infectious diseases respectively. The new subsidiary will operate alongside Redx Anti-Infectives from laboratories at Alderley Park, Cheshire, UK.
The new company has been launched with £4.2m of funding from the UK Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF). Redx will use the proceeds from its AIM listing in March to match this funding.
Redx Immunology aims to deliver up to eight new drug development candidates for subsequent progression into clinical trials.
Dr Neil Murray, Chief Executive of Redx Pharma, said: '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 believe that Redx's 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.'
Murray added: '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. This latest award gives us another key base from which we can grow our overall business.'
Redx has already established a portfolio of 13 proprietary, (patent-protected) drug programmes. Five 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.