Starpharma Holdings Limited is a world leader in the development of dendrimer products for pharmaceutical, life science and other applications.
Starpharma’s underlying technology is built around dendrimers – a type of synthetic polymer that is highly regular in size and structure and well tolerated pharmaceutically. Products based on Starpharma’s dendrimer technology are already on the market for diagnostics and laboratory reagents through licence arrangements with partners including Siemens and Merck KGaA.
Starpharma’s lead product is VivaGel® (SPL7013 Gel), a gel-based formulation of a nano-pharmaceutical under development as a vaginal microbicide to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted infections including HIV and genital herpes; and also for the treatment and prevention of bacterial vaginosis.
Starpharma has signed separate licence agreements with Ansell Limited (ASX:ANN) and Okamoto Industries Inc to develop a VivaGel® coated condom. Ansell manufactures and sells leading condom brands wordwide, including Lifestyles®, ZERO® and SKYN®. Okamoto is the market leader for condoms sold in Japan, the world’s second largest condom market.
In the wider pharmaceutical and life science fields, Starpharma has specific programs in Drug Delivery, (using dendrimers to control where and when drugs go when introduced to the body) and Targeted Diagnostics (using dendrimers as a scaffold to which both location-signalling and targeting groups are added to allow location of specific cell type, such as cancer cells). More broadly the company is exploring dendrimer opportunities in agrochemicals, materials science with applications as diverse as coatings, adhesives and lubricants and in water remediation.
Starpharma has agreements in place with Lilly, Elanco, and Stiefel Laboratories (a GSK Company) as well as many research collaborations with some of the world’s leading organisations.
Starpharma’s headquarters and research facilities are located in Melbourne, Australia. Starpharma principally consists of two operating companies, Starpharma Pty Ltd in Australia and Dendritic Nanotechnologies, Inc. in USA. both with a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio.
Founded in 1996, Starpharma listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2000 (ASX: SPL). Starpharma securities also trade in the US under the American Depository Receipts (ADR) program, and are listed on the OCTQX platform (OTCQX: SPHRY). OTCQX is the premium tier of the US Over-the-Counter (OTC) marketplace, providing non-US companies with a visible cross-listing to access US investors, without the duplicative regulatory costs required of listing on a traditional US exchange.
