Nuformix

In the 10 months since moving away from an exclusively virtual product development model, in-house R&D programmes have made a significant contribution to Nuformix’s product portfolio. Valuable gains in the speed and efficiency of development have been seen, and therefore Nuformix is expanding in-house capability to further accelerate growth of its product pipeline.

Nuformix’s CEO, Dan Gooding, explains “The virtues of lean and mean virtual pharma are well documented and have served us well, but more recently Nuformix has achieved major success taking R&D in-house. We’re able to operate both reactively and proactively when needed with increased speed and at a lower cost than working exclusively through partners. This increased autonomy has had an immediate impact on the value of our company and I’m excited to see how increasing this activity continues to impact our ability to develop new products over the next 6 months”.

CTO, Dr Joanne Holland adds “Focussing our in-house resources onto critical path R&D problems has been a great success. Whereas we will always need some degree of external support, I believe we have the right approach to broadening the scope of our future internal activity and that we will see the benefits of increased in-house efforts sooner rather than later”.

Nuformix are excited to announce the provisional US patent filing for its NX017 product. NX017 is a currently marketed drug (2009 global sales > £200m) with significant year-on-year growth both in terms of sales and new indications.

Costly synthesis and formulation requirements combine to make it one of the world’s most expensive drugs. However, Nuformix have successfully reengineered NX017’s solid form to significantly enhance key physical properties.

Such advances can increase bioavailability, enable standard formulation or an alternative release profile, all of which will be crucial for a fast growing and high-cost drug. Nuformix is currently seeking partners to further develop its product portfolio, of which NX017 is the latest validated addition.

Nuformix has today received the results from pre-clinical studies for its NX006 product range.

NX006 is a leading treatment in pain management with annual sales exceeding £340m in 2009. However, patients treated using the currently marketed form require a high daily dosage of over 3000 mg of this very low solubility API.

In-vivo testing of the new solid forms of NX006 created by Nuformix demonstrate an increase of up to 220% in bioavailability. Across the range of forms studied, the results conclusively demonstrate that dramatic reductions in patient dosage are achievable, as are improved release profiles and more cost-effective manufacturing.

These options are made possible by Nuformix simply via re-engineering of the solid form and were expected following significant physical property changes when compared to the parent compound.

Nuformix have therefore completed critical steps in its strategy to discover, scale-up and validate vastly improved forms of currently marketed drug products and is currently seeking collaborative partnerships to enable market approval of this product.