Medherant Ltd. Completes £1.5M Fundraising Round for Transdermal Drug Delivery Platform

Tue, 27/09/2016 - 09:00

Coventry, UK, 27th September 2016 / Sciad Newswire / Medherant Ltd., a University of Warwick spin-out developing a novel transdermal drug delivery patch technology, has completed a funding round worth £1.5M, including a direct investment of £650,000 from Mercia Technologies PLC.

Medherant’s first-in-class drug delivery platform, known as the TEPI Patch®, is designed to address many of the failings of previous transdermal drug delivery patches. The benefits of TEPI Patch® include increased drug loading capabilities and a significantly expanded library of drugs available for patch delivery, potentially including drugs that had previously failed clinical trials because of their unsuitability for oral administration.

Medherant will use the new funding to advance pre-clinical studies of the TEPI Patch®, in preparation for moving into clinical studies in 2017.

The technology is initially being developed for use with pain-relief drugs ibuprofen and methyl salicylate, delivering a controlled dose over a period as long as 24 hours, a feature lacking in current gel and cream-based topical delivery methods. Medherant is currently seeking partners with which to develop transdermal delivery patches for a wide variety of further therapeutic applications.

Nigel Davis, CEO of Medherant, said: “We are delighted to continue our excellent relationship with Mercia and also to secure funding from new investors. The process has been smooth, enabling us to continue to focus on technology development. These funds enable us to move ahead rapidly with pre-clinical studies for our lead TEPI Patch® programmes so that we can be ready for testing in the clinic in 2017.”

Dr. Mark Payton, CEO of Mercia Technologies PLC, commented “We are delighted to transition Medherant into a direct investment. Owing to our close relationships with our University partners, we identified the advanced technology created by Professor David Haddleton, the founder of two other companies within our portfolio, at a crucial stage of development. Mercia has worked closely with the Medherant team and the relationship is an excellent example of our Complete Capital Solution helping to develop UK companies and ultimately deliver shareholder value to our shareholders. We look forward to supporting Medherant as they move into the clinical trial phase.”

Ends

Contacts

Medherant
Nigel Davis
CEO
N.Davis@medherant.co.uk
+44 (0)24 7632 3060

Media Relations, Sciad Communications
Deborah Cockerill
deborah@sciad.com
+44 (0)20 7470 8801

About Medherant Ltd

Medherant is a developer of first-in-class transdermal drug delivery patches founded by Professor David Haddleton and the University of Warwick. Since March 2015, Medherant has been using its world-leading expertise in bioadhesives and polymer chemistry to create new adhesive transdermal patches to expand and advance the library of drugs that can be delivered using patches. The TEPI Patch® technology, developed by Medherant, improves upon existing patches by significantly increasing drug loading capability, efficacy and patient user experience.

Medherant is commercialising novel transdermal patch-based products and solutions that are capable of delivering a much wider range of drugs than traditional patch products, while offering levels of dose control that other topical delivery methods do not have. Medherant’s first products are currently in pre-clinical testing, and are expected to enter clinical testing in 2017.

The Company is currently seeking partnerships with pharmaceutical companies wishing to extend the commercial life of drug patents, or with products for which development has halted due to the compound being unsuitable for oral delivery.

www.medherant.co.uk

About Mercia Technologies PLC

Mercia is a national investment group focused on the creation, funding and scaling of innovative businesses with high growth potential from the UK regions. Mercia employs 60 people across six offices and it has one of the largest university networks in the UK with 18 university partnerships across the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland. These partnerships provide access to high quality, regional deal flow which accounts for approximately one third of Mercia’s investments.

Mercia’s ‘Complete Capital Solution’ enable it to scale businesses via its third party funds (with more than £220.0million under management) and then over time Mercia identifies its ‘Emerging Stars’ which it can provide further capital to using its own balance sheet.

Mercia focuses on sourcing and scaling businesses across four sectors: Digital & Digital Entertainment; Life Sciences and Bio-sciences; Software & the Internet and; Electronics, Materials & Manufacturing/Engineering. 

In a recent report (Source: Beauhurst, The Deal, 2015/16), Mercia was found to be the fifth most active investor in the UK and the fourth most active in technology.  Since its IPO in December 2014, the Company continues to seek early stage third party investment opportunities and it has directly invested over £24.0million across its portfolio of Emerging Stars. In addition to providing its direct investments with the required capital, Mercia also supports the management teams to build towards exits that will realise incremental value for Mercia shareholders over the medium term.

The Mercia Group comprises Mercia Technologies PLC, Mercia Fund Management Ltd and Enterprise Ventures Group Ltd. Mercia is quoted on AIM with the epic “MERC”.

www.merciatech.co.uk