Starpharma — 4 videos in collection
Cheryl Maley, CEO of Starpharma, speaks to Arron Aatkar, director at Edison Group, about the company’s proprietary dendrimer drug delivery technology, its lead oncology asset DEP HER2-Lutetium (DEP HER2-Lu), plans for its first-in-human clinical study and strategic partnerships with Genentech, Radiopharm and Petalion Therapeutics. She also discusses the company’s priorities for London Life Science Week and the near-term milestones investors should watch.
What is Starpharma’s dendrimer technology and how could it improve cancer treatments?
Cheryl Maley: Starpharma is an Australian-based biotech. We have a proprietary drug delivery platform technology based on dendrimers, which essentially allows drugs to be more effective. In oncology, that means making them more effective at treating cancers while also reducing side effects and improving tolerability.
The dendrimer itself is quite a simple structure, but the goal when you incorporate it into a cancer treatment is to make it more effective with fewer side effects, improving outcomes for patients.
How does Starpharma’s lead asset, DEP HER2-Lu, work and what are its potential advantages?
Cheryl Maley: The beauty of the technology is that we can use it in our own pipeline as we develop a portfolio, but we can also license it to partners. Our lead asset, DEP HER2-Lutetium, is a radiotherapy targeting HER2, which is a well-validated target often present in breast cancer and gastric or gastro-oesophageal cancer. It is combined with lutetium, which is a widely available and widely used radioisotope in radiotherapy.
The goal of incorporating the dendrimer into that structure is to make the treatment more effective by achieving higher tumour penetration, uptake and retention, while reducing the impact on healthy tissues, particularly the kidneys. We also want to avoid the treatment remaining in the blood for too long and affecting healthy organs.
What are the clinical development plans for DEP HER2-Lu, and when can investors expect initial results?
Cheryl Maley: We are taking DEP HER2-Lu into the clinic and are hoping to have approval before the end of the year, with the first patient dosed if all goes well. The first-in-human study will involve around 15 patients. The goal is to make sure that the biodistribution matches what we have seen in the preclinical animal studies, where we have generated some really compelling data.
We saw very high tumour uptake and retention out to 12 days, while being able to avoid the kidneys and ensure the treatment was quickly cleared from the blood. Those are some of the challenges we see with radiotherapies, and incorporating the dendrimer in the preclinical studies has shown really encouraging outcomes.
The goal of the first-in-human study is to see whether we get that same outcome in patients. We hope to have the first readout from three to four patients at the start of next year.
How are Starpharma’s strategic partnerships progressing, particularly the recent developments at Petalion Therapeutics?
Cheryl Maley: We have three strategic partners. In October last year, we announced a licensing agreement with Genentech, which has the ability to use our dendrimer technology across a couple of targets within its drug development portfolio.
The partnerships are great validation for us. They show that the benefits we believe our technology can bring to the assets we are developing are also being recognised by partners, some of which have been using our technology for a few years.
Genentech is a great example. It is well renowned for its drug development and innovation and has licensed our technology. We also have Radiopharm, a local Australian biotech that is using the technology in the radiotherapy space.
The third partnership is our joint venture with Medicxi, which is a company called Petalion Therapeutics.
We recently announced that we have increased our equity position in Petalion, allowing us to lead the next phase of research and development on a FAP-targeted dendrimer conjugate. FAP is a pan-cancer target.
It is an exciting area where others have encountered many challenges that we believe the dendrimer can help solve. We are excited to lead this next phase, which builds on our great collaboration with Medicxi and the potential strengths that the dendrimer can bring in the FAP space.
What does Starpharma hope to achieve at London Life Science Week, and what near-term milestones should investors watch?
Cheryl Maley: London Life Science Week is very important for Starpharma. Building on the foundation of the partnerships we already have, it provides an opportunity to explore new partnerships and broaden our investment discussions.
For an Australian biotech, it is very efficient to come to events like this because everyone is in one place, rather than us having to travel all over the world to meet different stakeholders. That is our key goal for the visit to London.
In terms of near-term catalysts, investors should look out for our DEP HER2-Lu study and the first patient dosing milestone. We are also focused on expanding our partnership opportunities and advancing our FAP programme towards lead candidate identification.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Verbal fillers, false starts and minor repetitions have been removed from the interviewee’s responses only. Punctuation, spelling and formatting have also been standardised in line with Edison house style. No substantive changes have been made to the meaning of the discussion.
