Midatech shares skyrocket as it enters new research collaboration

Drug delivery technology company Midatech Pharma has entered into a research collaboration for the ‘Q-Sphera’ platform, it announced on Tuesday, with an unnamed European affiliate of a global pharmaceutical company.

The AIM-traded firm said that within the multi-project collaboration, it would deploy its in-house expertise and proprietary drug delivery platforms towards assets nominated by the pharmaceutical company.

It said the feasibility studies could establish the application of the Q-Sphera platform to new modalities in drug delivery.

Novel assets and products arising from the collaboration would be the property of the pharmaceutical company, and in the event that the feasibility study was successful, the company would be required to enter into a licence agreement to use the Q-Sphera platform.

Following the first research agreement for the Q-Sphera platform on 8 June, the Midatech board said the new, second pharmaceutical collaboration further built on its dual business model to develop an internal portfolio of “differentiated, sustained release products” in parallel to enabling access to the technology by strategic collaborators.

It said that would best exploit the full potential of the Q-Sphera platform, and potentially broaden its application to new therapeutic areas and modalities.

“This collaboration with a highly reputable company further builds upon Midatech's mission to use our expertise and established capabilities to continually innovate and improve our technologies,” said chief executive officer Stephen Stamp.

“By furthering our collaborative business model, we believe we can enable the unique qualities of this technology to reach beyond our own internal development pipeline for the benefit of all patients.”

At 1629 BST, shares in Midatech Pharma were up 314.29% at 87p.