Released: Thursday 15th March 2012

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY BOARD GRANT AWARDED FOR PARENTERAL PROJECT

MGB Biopharma Limited announced today the award of a Proof of Concept grant by the UK Government-backed Technology Strategy Board under its Smart scheme for a project entitled “Parenteral Formulation for New Class (DNA Minor Groove Binder) Anti-Infective”

The project will focus on MGB BP-3 which is a small molecule which belongs to the new class of anti-infectives, the DNA minor groove binders under development by MGB Biopharma. MGB BP-3 is the clinical candidate already selected from a series with strong antibacterial activity against Gram positive agents including MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), VRE (Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus) and Clostridium Difficile. MGB BP-3 is already in late stage preclinical studies for oral administration in the treatment of Clostridium Difficile infections, having demonstrated certain advantages over vancomycin during studies conducted in Q2 2011.

The project will be led by MGB and the funding will amount to £100,000 over a period of 6 months.

Miroslav Ravic, CSO/CEO said “We are delighted that the Technology Strategy Board has agreed to support development of this important new class of antibacterial. This grant will allow us to access a wider field of use than our current resources would have allowed in the short term – for example into the potential treatment of life threatening infections where resistance to existing drugs occurs. The formulation work we will perform for parenteral usage has much more far reaching implications than for our lead molecule alone, as it will provide us with key data which will extend to the other potential applications of our DNA minor groove class to areas including other profile antibiotics, antifungals, and compounds with specific activity in parasitic diseases including malaria”.