Norwich Research Park company expands into Innovation Centre as trials progress

Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds, many of whom die because they were unable to reach a hospital in time. A new under-the-tongue spray developed by Norwich Research Park company LondonPharma could help cut deaths by helping children recover sufficiently to survive the journey to hospital.

LondonPharma, recently voted ‘Best Emerging Biotech of the Year’, is expanding its business as its new product completes Phase 3 trials. As a result of this progression, the company is moving from the Norwich BioIncubator to the Norwich Research Park Innovation Centre. These are two centres that house the commercial businesses on the Norwich Research Park, including those with an interest in the pharmaceutical industry and drug development.

Research and Development Director Clive Booles explains how LondonPharma’s new spray treatment offers a breakthrough:

“A child’s best chance of survival currently is to receive specialist drugs delivered through an intravenous drip, but this treatment can only be provided by a trained medical professional in a hospital setting. The spray on the other hand can be used in any setting and by anyone with minimal training.

“Children with severe malaria are often dehydrated and may even be comatose. Our spray has been shown to bring children out of a coma and within 24 hours, children will have recovered enough to eat and take on fluids. This means that once the spray is approved for use outside hospitals, children who receive it will be in a far better state of health to travel for further treatment.

“As it stands, there is no effective alternative for treating children with severe malaria closer to home, meaning thousands of children die during the journey to hospital. Our treatment offers these children a better chance of survival.”

The spray developed by LondonPharma contains a drug that is currently only used in tablet form to treat ‘uncomplicated’ (non-severe) malaria. Trials have found that delivering this drug as a sublingual (under-the-tongue) spray has astounding effects on children with severe malaria.

Clive Booles continues;

“When taking a tablet, there are several different factors that can affect how well the active drug is absorbed from the gut into the blood stream. Common treatments for uncomplicated malaria, such as artemether, seem to be particularly poorly absorbed when in tablet form, but delivering the drug as a spray overcomes these issues.”

“The clinicians in Africa are amazing; they do so much with so little. Sometimes children are so severely dehydrated it is near impossible to insert an intravenous drip. If a child can recover enough to drink, this helps the clinicians considerably and the children themselves feel so much better.”

The spray, which does not require refrigeration, can be applied by anyone with minimal training and so children will be able the access the treatment locally. Phase III trials are near completion and the spray is expected to come to market within two years.

The work carried out by LondonPharma is possible only because of the significant funding provided by Frank Timis. Frank is Chairman of the Timis Foundation and has a portfolio of businesses in the mining and oil industries. He has worked extensively in West Africa and has seen first-hand the devastating effects of malaria.

In September, LondonPharma were voted Best Emerging Biotech of the Year at the prestigious Oxford Bioscience Network Annual Award Dinner. The company is also developing products for cancer, cholesterol reduction, pain, addiction and erectile dysfunction. These projects have either already reached the clinical trials phase or will reach this stage within the next few months.

Transferring its premises from the Norwich BioIncubator to the Norwich Research Park Innovation Centre and taking on more laboratory space will enable LondonPharma to grow.

Clive Booles says; “Moving to the Innovation Centre will allow us to take on new members of staff and investigate other drugs which may be improved using a sublingual delivery system.

“We have heard that a high proportion of students from the University of East Anglia want to stay in the area once they have completed their degree. It would be great if we could attract some of these high-quality science graduates to LondonPharma.”

For further information visit www.londonpharma.com